


a heart truly convinced

by Fickle_Obsessions



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, Military, Slow Burn, but also a lot of inaccuracy, some historical accuracy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-07-16 02:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 55,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7249051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fickle_Obsessions/pseuds/Fickle_Obsessions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lafayette runs away to America to publicly pledge his service (and secretly pledge his magic) to the fight for liberty. </p><p>Then he meets George Washington.</p><p>So he ends up doing all that while teaching the General magic and falling head over heels for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cause

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette falls in love with America at first sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To some extent this story is entirely unnecessary given that there other stories about "The American Revolution But With Magic!" But this what I decided I desperately needed to write, so I'm writing it. The good news is if this story isn't your cuppa, there's other stories to check out!
> 
> Warnings, characters, and relationships will be updated as necessary. I've also rated this as "Teen" even though this and a few other parts of the story will be rather tame. This is because I have full intentions of upping this to "Explicit" in the future. I didn't want to imply you're getting more than you're getting in this part, but I also wanted it clear this story will not be completely gen.
> 
> A word on tagging this as "Hamilton - Miranda." In general this story will more strictly follow the historical timeline, rather than the more elastic timeline of the show. That's mostly just because of how dizzying it is to try and make sense of 7 years of war in half of a single act can be. So the biggest change here is that Lafayette is newly arrived to America and he and Hamilton do not know each other prior to his meeting Washington (as is historically accurate). However, as we advance in the timeline and more characters get introduced (Hamilton and Laurens, hell yes) things will blur and merge a bit more.
> 
> Unbeta'ed because I literally know no one who wants to read this.

In all sincerity, when Lafayette sets sail to America and its war for independence he does not once consider that he might come across an American with magic. It is not necessarily that he believes it impossible an American could have magic- the thought just never occurs. In his defense, there are far more exciting things to contemplate. 

The Americans’ war, for example, and how it is conceived as a battle between liberty and tyranny. For an entire year Lafayette’s heart beats only to the imagined sound of their fife and drum. This may well be his only chance to continue the military tradition of his family for a truly noble purpose. Though he can hardly bear the idea that he may fail to live up to the glory of his forefathers, he has resolved to fight with honor and only for a just cause. And being too intimately familiar with the excesses of Versailles, Lafayette is quite convinced no task assigned to him by his king will ever be as pure as the Americans’ fight for freedom. This is a precious opportunity and one he is determined not to miss. 

It may also be true that although Lafayette is an ardent convert to egalitarianism, it is not yet second nature to him. He has always known magic to be a skill of great refinement. In fact, among the French aristocracy magic has grown quite tame. One might even say staid. It seems almost impossible to divorce it from the elegant drawing rooms where Lafayette has most commonly seen it practiced. Upon first contemplation the colonies, still rough and wild around the edges, hardly seem to be the right crucible for it to develop. 

Such presumptions when combined with the common belief in France that magic has been fading among the British families for generations make it easy for Lafayette to assume that magic had simply never gained a foothold in Britain’s far-flung colonies. Upon landing in South Carolina, little of what he encounters dissuades Lafayette of his distracted opinion. To be sure he finds the Americans to be most charming. They seem to all have a refreshing zeal, a wonderful vigor for their lives, their lands and their cause. But they are also quite obviously and even contentedly mundane. 

Lafayette wastes no time in catching up on news of the war, and sets himself just as quickly to the task of learning American customs (how much they value a great deal of space around their person, he soon discovers). When he speaks to someone the first time Lafayette enjoys watching the startled amusement pass over their faces, a bright flicker of shock quickly shuttered behind a polite smile. Refreshingly they take him at face value, only too glad to believe Lafayette is entirely as he says: rich, cultured, sincere, and chivalrous. As far as Lafayette can tell, his innate magic seems to strike Americans as a pleasant sort of eccentricity most definitely ascribed to his being foreign.

Soon Lafayette travels to Philadelphia to finally appeal to Congress directly to accept his service. He deems it a fine city, certainly when compared with Georgetown. Though it still has it’s rustic touches, it is far more like the great cities of the continent. At night it glitters with lamps and candlelight, and music wafts throughout the muggy summer air like sweet perfume (even if it may only be an unaccompanied fiddle). Despite the increased population around him, Lafayette senses nothing more than faint whispers of magic when he walks the streets. They feel more like hints of some latent and under-developed strain, the possibility of magic rather than the reality. 

Then, finally, Lafayette meets General Washington. 

But before he does, he must meet with America’s Congress. He is given a fine reception by the delegates, flattered most profusely, and shown a florid sort of gratitude. For a few days Lafayette is swept along by their high flown regard, but soon he realizes it to be quite hollow. Though he is now a major general in their army they will not speak to him of the number of men he will command, or even tell him anything of real meaning regarding the number and placement of their troops or the British regiments. For all it allows him, his new sash might as well be nothing more than a costume piece. 

Lafayette must now pin all of his hopes of fighting for this country onto just one man, Washington. The General alone can assure that Lafayette gets a chance to fulfill his destiny, for only his opinion can override the Congress’s extreme caution. Lafayette will need to prove himself worthy to him, and directly. Yet shortly before he is to meet the General the delegate who will be his escort gives him the well-meant warning that Washington has an extreme dislike of pretension. 

Lafayette feels for the first time his lack of mastery of the English very keenly. Suppose he chooses the wrong word and offends the General? Or worse still makes himself seem insincere in his intentions? How will he know his mistake let alone correct it? What are the right words to assure the General of the purity of his reasons for joining his fight?

Such thoughts plague him while waiting for the General to arrive for dinner. Lafayette cannot make himself sit, nor pay proper attention to the conversation. Finally he just begs pardon for his inferior mastery of English in order to be left alone to fret as he may. He fiddles with and adjusts the sword on his belt so often that he eventually must forbid himself from touching it again. The anticipation builds and builds until it becomes oppressive, and Lafayette finds the air in the room too close, too warm. He feels he must step outside - for a moment at least to catch his breath - but as he moves towards the door four uniformed officers of the Continental Army sweep into the room followed, unmistakably, by General Washington himself. 

Already in his young and privileged lifetime, Lafayette has had audiences with two kings, and yet somehow he is not prepared at all to be in _this_ presence. 

After he was named the Commander of America’s Continental Army Washington presence and character was much described in everything from crowing American gazettes, dismissive European newspapers, fawning poems, and gossiping letters. Lafayette had devoured each and every piece he could get his hands on before he came to America, trying to cobble together a likeness of the real man. Since he’s arrived he’s had ample opportunity and means to further the product of his imagination, so increased in availability and fervor are the descriptions of Washington available in the colonies. The General’s reputation does not just precede him, it covers the whole of his country. Even so it is immediately apparent that both these reports and Lafayette’s imagination fell short. 

It’s not that they were inaccurate. Everything about the man appears to be as promised, the noble bearing and imposing height, a striking gravity of expression and appealing elegance of motion. Yet despite the lofty heights of the praise Lafayette had heard, somehow the intensity, the potency was never properly conveyed. 

There are contradictions, too, which were omitted. It’s true the General’s features are handsome and attractive, but they have little refinement and no delicacy. Sharp eyes burn from the protection of heavy brow, and are set around a large and broad nose. His mouth, though it suits him, is not supple, set in a firm, straight line in contrast with a small irregularity in the symmetry of his jaw. It’s true as well that Washington moves with the elegance of a dancer, but also with a directness that is more intimidating than inviting. The combination of such an attractive, magnetic presence with an aloofness that thoroughly quells the desire to approach him makes for an uneasy first impression.

Lafayette stands to one side of the room as if rooted to the floor beneath his feet. He watches as the General greets those guests he knows and is introduced to those he does not. The Pennsylvanian delegate who will introduce him to Washington comes to stand by his side. Lafayette’s stomach trembles in a shameful show of nerves and he takes slow, deep breaths in a fruitless attempt to quiet it.

His panic only increases as Washington comes closer and then finally, impossibly stands before Lafayette. Instinctively he straightens his back, but even at his full height Lafayette must still tip his head up just a little to meet the general’s eye. Washington looks him full in the face, frank and considering, and Lafayette does his best to seem worthy of the General’s regard.

Lafayette hears the man at his side begin to introduce him to the General, but it sounds as if he is outside the room or behind a closed door. Again and again Lafayette tries to clear his head, but it will not clear. Dismayed, he wonders what on earth is wrong with him. It’s only very slowly that Lafayette begins to discern that the General’s presence is more than purely impressive. The height, the carriage, the strength hinted in every movement create a plausible enough explanation for it at first sight, but the skin on the back of Lafayette’s neck is tingling with the General’s proximity. It feels as if everything within Lafayette, indeed everything in the room has rearranged itself to point toward the General. Indeed every face and body in the room has turned toward the general, but it’s more than that. It’s elemental, it’s their very hearts and minds. 

All at once Lafayette realizes he is in the presence of a powerful magic, and it is emanating most assuredly from the man before him. It has settled in the room in the same way a summer storm weighs down the horizon, and just like an oncoming storm the magic has made everyone in its path stop and consider it. Lafayette is, aptly, thunderstruck, by the _force_ of the magic, by the fact that it exists at all. 

He can hardly form a coherent thought, let alone one in English, but an uncomfortable silence has settled between himself and the General. The Pennsylvanian delegate has most definitely stopped speaking. 

“Your Excellency, you must forgive me,” he bursts out suddenly, cheeks burning with his embarrassment. “I have not yet learned to think in English, it makes me slow, but I will learn. I am most humbly at your service, general.” 

Washington had not shaken anyone else's hand upon meeting them, so Lafayette offers him a low bow and hopes it is elegant enough to make up for his awkward start. 

“You do my country and myself a great honor,” Washington responds politely but not at all warmly. “And so you have both of our heartfelt thanks.”

In an instant it is clear that Washington means to move on, and Lafayette very nearly reaches out to take the General’s arm. He manages even to lift his hand before he thinks better of it. 

“Sir, the honor and the gratitude is entirely mine. I know that I am young, and that I cause some problem by coming here, but when I learn of the cause, _your_ cause, I knew that I must join in your struggle. And now I find that you- ah.” Lafayette’s mouth has gotten away from him, his English is breaking up, and he would truly be a fool to blurt out of their shared trait in front of the other guests. He takes a deep breath.

“Forgive me,” he asks of Washington again. “We all must ah, to have dinner. If you will give me a moment of your time afterward to let me speak of a few things freely, I would greatly appreciate it.” 

Washington hesitates, and Lafayette implores him as strongly as he might using only his eyes. “Very well,” the General says finally, with a curt nod. “I will send for you after.”

Lafayette smiles at him gratefully. Washington looks at him a moment longer then smoothly turns and walks away.

Though this meeting is mystifying it does at least have the small benefit of making Lafayette’s terrible nerves disappear. In their place is an awestruck wonder of the General and a dozen questions Lafayette will have no answer to until they can speak frankly. 

As they eat, his senses cannot help but trace the cool edges of Washington’s power. In the long weeks away from home Lafayette has almost forgotten what it is like not to feel just his own magic in the room. Everything he discovers of Washington’s magic delights him. It is so strong and unwavering. It does not change shape or ebb and flow, but looms steadily in such a way that even the air must shift to accommodate it. The man must have a marvelous control of it to hold back so much power into such a tidy form. 

The dinner, thankfully, passes quickly thanks to Lafayette’s distraction. He lingers alone after, not daring to enjoy a glass of madeira offered him. The anticipation is yet again allowed to build, but this time it’s a giddy, electric thing rather than a stifling weight. One of the officers that had arrived with Washington appears at the door, and Lafayette jumps up from his chair eagerly. He is led up the stairs and to a room at the end of the hall. 

Reflexively, Lafayette waits for him to open the door, and he is too caught up in thinking about what he will say to the General to realize that the man is affronted. Finally the officer opens the door so quickly that Lafayette feels air rush past his face, snapping his attention back to the moment. The officer then gestures for Lafayette to enter with a mocking, exaggerated deference. 

Lafayette admonishes himself. He must do better. It is not enough to simply love the ideals he will be fighting for, he must live them.

In the room he finds Washington sitting straight-backed behind a desk and writing a letter. The desk has been moved to nearly the center of the room, and turned so that the General’s back is not to the door. He glances up at Lafayette’s entrance, then returns his attention back to the letter to finish his phrase. Lafayette waits as patiently as he can, watching as the General blots the ink, stows his quill and hides his letter in a drawer with unhurried but efficient movements. 

At last Washington smoothly stands up, and Lafayette can’t stop himself from rushing forward to meet him as he rounds the desk. “Your Excellency, sir. I know that you are very busy and have many important duties which need your attention, but I think it important we speak freely.” 

The General’s silence is Lafayette’s only permission to continue. 

“You must understand that I had heard much of your Excellency’s greatness, both before I arrived and after, but I did not guess upon the extent of it. I confess when I came to America I never conceived that I would find another such as myself.” He spreads his arms apologetically for his error. “Of course I planned to use my abilities covertly to aid your cause in any way I could. However now that I know we are the same, there is so much that we can accomplish with our power put to the same purpose.”

Lafayette waits for Washington to agree or at least acknowledge this but he is met with only a continuing silence. 

“Are you not pleased to…” Lafayette begins to ask, thinking perhaps he’d misunderstood. Perhaps the General’s own plans are threatened by the intrusion of Lafayette’s magic. Or perhaps Lafayette is presenting an idea the General has already decided upon as if it were his own. Perhaps Americans find it rude to discuss magic so openly. “Forgive me, sir, I just grew so excited when I realized.”

“And what precisely did you realize, Marquis?” the General asks.

“Your magic,” Lafayette says, even though it’s terribly blunt to say so. Apparently he cannot manage a correct sort of subtlety in English. “I did not realize you would be gifted. I don’t think anyone in France or England would ever suspect, in fact.” A concerning sort of crease forms upon the General’s brow. In case the General thinks Lafayette means any insult he quickly adds, “It is brilliant you have kept it so safe a secret. It means that they will continue to underestimate you.”

“Magic,” Washington repeats. 

Lafayette nods. 

After a long silence the General then says, “Perhaps, a translator could help you find a better word.” 

“Sir,” Lafayette says, he looks into Washington’s eyes and tries to peer beyond their barricades, to gain some clue that will help him make sense of this conversation. He is easily repelled, so he insists, “There is no better word.” 

Washington looks incredibly doubtful of that and a notion begins to form in Lafayette’s mind, that the General truly does not _know._

“It is very late, Marquis,” Washington says moving back toward his desk. “I am sure we can speak together tomorrow. I have an aide, Hamilton, very bright and fluent in French. I’ll make sure he joins us.” 

“Sir,” Lafayette pleads. “I do not misspeak.” But Washington pays him no further mind, pulling out the drawer to his desk to retrieve his letter before he sits down to finish it. In desperation Lafayette moves his hand and the flames of the two candles on the desk go out with hardly a flutter of a breeze. 

Washington pauses and considers the thin trail of smoke rising from each wick for a long time. He glances up at Lafayette at last and says, “A very fine parlour trick, thank you. We may speak more tomorrow.” 

Lafayette cannot help but feel an unhappy sting at his magic being so dismissively described, but he ignores it. It's far more important that he make the General see. Lafayette raises both hands, then lowers them down. Every candle in the room slowly dies together, the light fading until finally they are both surrounded by a darkness lit only by the moon outside. 

He can just see the General in profile as he turns his head to look around the room, bewildered. His point made Lafayette lights the candles again, all of them, with a brief burst of will.

In the renewed light Lafayette sees Washington caught off guard for the very first time. Absent a more reasonable and familiar explanation, the power of the General’s presence deflates until he sits heavily in his chair, still regarding the candles upon the desk as if to be doubly sure of what he sees. 

“Ah,” Washington says lightly as if he has come to come to some final conclusion about what he has just been shown. Yet he says nothing more for a very long time. Lafayette gives him that time though he is bursting to say more, to learn more. 

“Magic,” Washington says after a long, tired sigh. “Upon everything else, now this.” 

“I assure you it is a reason to be happy,” Lafayette says, trying to ease the General’s misgivings. “With magic we can do great things. This is a boon, your Excellency, I promise you.” 

“You truly think that you can make something like this be of some use to us in the war?” 

Lafayette notices that although the General seems willing to accept what he’s been shown as true, he does not acknowledge the other part of the statement: we. Lafayette reaffirms it. “If we work together, yes, I think there is a great deal that we could do.”

“Ah,” Washington says again. “I’m afraid I must correct you, Marquis, because I have no such-” 

“Sir, but you do,” Lafayette says, it is rude maybe to interrupt but he wants so badly for the General to see. How can a man have such power and not know it? Lafayette casts his mind about for a way to prove it. “What I have, what you have, allows us to sense the same in others. When I performed the charm with the candles, did you not feel something in the room? Perhaps a whisper you heard when you first met me that you could suddenly discern with more clarity?” 

For another long moment Washington considers his question. The General, Lafayette is learning, is not one to rush with a response. Finally he speaks, “I smelled a winter day quite clearly, here in the middle of summer. Evergreen boughs, orange, cinnamon and clove. Something crisp and cold like fresh snow.” 

Lafayette hopes his blush is faint enough not to show. It feels rather intimate, having his magic described, and he cannot help but be pleased at the summation the General gave him. Eager to return the favor he admits, “Your magic is quite impossible to mistake. It feels to me like a summer storm gathering its strength at the horizon.” 

Washington frowns at him, saying, “That seems rather ominous.” 

Lafayette smiles and shakes his head, “I find it very hopeful. Sometimes you have reason to want the rain.” 

Washington raises his eyes to meet Lafayette’s, in them is a question not quite formed, not quite answered. The the focus slides away as he is lost in thought again. 

Washington shakes his head. “I must apologize, sir, but what you are telling me makes no sense at all. I have never-” here he gestures to the candles, “there’s never been anything like that.” 

“But that is only because you did not know you could,” Lafayette says. “Such things must be learned. If you do not know to apply magic then it remains very subtle. Hasn't there ever been a moment in your life where something occurred that was beyond belief?” 

“There have been far too many,” Washington retorts like a volley of return fire.

Lafayette supposes that is not to be argued with a man in such a position as the General. Still he persists, “But there must be something, sir - and it hardly matters how small a thing - but something that lacked any mundane explanation.”

The General ponders this in the same long and careful way he has all the strange, unexpected things Lafayette has brought to his attention tonight. Lafayette expects that Washington to at last remember something simple, the kind of spontaneous magic that one looks for in a child with a raw talent. He is thinking perhaps of a painting that decided to speak or move when stared at for too long, a beloved item that was broken and mended itself overnight, perhaps a door that shut with an absent minded thought. 

Finally Washington asks him, “Are you familiar with Braddock’s poor showing in the conflict over the Ohio country?” 

“Yes,” Lafayette says eagerly. “When I learned of the cause, and that you would be the man to lead the fight for it, I read everything I could. I will admit some of it was a colored by the bias the French had against a foe, but after Braddock’s defeat there were some in France that were quite bothered by the fact they had to admire your bravery.” 

Lafayette has again let his mouth get away with him, but thankfully Washington doesn’t look bothered by his blathering honesty. 

“Recently Congress sent envoys to the Six Nations to see if we could broker an alliance with their tribes. One of the envoys returned with this answer from a chief who had fought that day against Braddock: he said he would not fight, either in our interest or the British. When asked why, he said it was because he could neither believe that I could win against the British or that the British could kill me.”

“Kill you?”

Washington nods, “He said that during the battle against Braddock he directed his warriors to shoot the British officers. And so his warriors did.” He sighs, his eyes are a very far away, seeing neither Lafayette nor the room around them. Lafayette leans forward, terribly interested in hearing his future commander speak of battle. 

“One by one they went down,” Washington says, sounding tired. “Killed. Injured. All of them except for me, though their bullets went through my coat, one through my hat, and felled two horses beneath me. Eventually he bid them to stop wasting their bullets.” 

He looks to Lafayette for some confirmation, but Lafayette waits for still more. “I confess that in all the battles, all the skirmishes, and misfortunes I have seen, a bullet aimed at me has never found the mark. I could never say why.”

Lafayette feels a startled, almost breathless thrill run through him. “You can _stop_ bullets?” he asks, scarcely able to believe.

His incredulity must embarrass the General because instantly his curiosity is once again shuttered behind the cold, patrician mask. 

“I don’t know that I do anything at all to bullets,” he says, sharply. “But you asked me for something inexplicable and so.” He gestures at the desk before him as if what he’d said was laid upon it waiting for Lafayette to review. 

Lafayette shakes his head, “No, no, please. I did not mean to say I did not believe. It is just so terribly impressive, sir. The Queen of France can barely keep her tea hot and here you can confound _bullets._ ” He smiles helplessly as he shrugs, “It's marvelous.”

Washington’s irritation is suddenly abandoned for surprise. “The Queen of France? She has this…” he chooses not to say the word, “as well?” 

Lafayette nodded, “A minor talent for it, yes. Most of the royal families do.” 

Washington shakes his head in confusion, “My boy, you must stop throwing random bits of information out as if they are known to everyone. I need to make some sense of this.” 

“I apologize,” Lafayette said, clearing his throat. It was lovely to hear the General call him something so familiar, though ‘my boy’ was said as if to an overexcited child. “It is not so easy to paint the whole picture quickly. Rather like describing the entire history of a country in a few words. Let me tell it now as my grandmama told it to me.”

In his mind he rehearses the words carefully in English before speaking them. “Magic is old, as old as humanity, or older. It is a talent, just like a proficiency in music, art, or letters. As such it does not follow rules except when it pleases it do so. It chooses fortunate sons and daughters at random, and it follows bloodlines only for as long as it wishes to do so. It can be a tool, like a hammer or nail. It can be a weapon, like a sword or musket. It can be an art, like a symphony or painting. And it must always be a secret from those who do not have it.”

“Why a secret?” 

Lafayette shrugs, “For many reasons, not the least of which was the penchant for burning witches at the stake not so very long ago. Now rarely did those trials manage to accuse anyone with with true magic, but still it was a clear demonstration of what could happen if the reality of magic was common knowledge. Discretion keeps us all safer.” 

Washington does not seem inclined to dispute the wisdom of this. 

“Actually I believe this could easily be the longest conversation I have ever had about it with someone not in my family,” Lafayette says, musing over his memories for even one instance like this. There is none. 

“And I assume this runs in your family extensively?” 

Lafayette nods. If he had to describe his family’s renown in just three words he would have to choose money, magic, and fighting. 

“And you also seem to imply that it runs primarily in aristocratic and royal bloodlines?” 

Lafayette tips his head to one side, “It is true one often follows the other, but it is not how you might think. Aristocratic families do not have magic because they are aristocratic. They are aristocratic because they have magic. Magic can be very useful, it helps smart people to change the odds to their favor and advance. With magic you may set your family up very well. It pays, too, to share a secret with powerful people.” 

“The divine right of kings, indeed,” Washington mutters to himself. He looks to Lafayette again, “You are telling me the King’s family was simply cunning, nothing more?”

“Very cunning indeed at one time, but the magic is fading. As it fades from the French royal family. Another reason for secrets, if the people do not know the true shape and form of your power then they cannot know when it weakens.” He shares a meaningful look with the General. “The times and mankind are changing in more way than one.” 

“Still you do believe the British forces still have their own magic to wield?” 

“Without a doubt, sir. I do not know the Howe brothers, or their officers but it seems unlikely that the British would entrust a campaign of such importance to a group of officers without having everything possible at their disposal.” 

“And yet despite this advantage the British have been defeated. And not only by myself, by untrained militia,” Washington says sitting back in his chair, and gesturing to Lafayette to explain. 

“This is not so strange. Unfortunately as much as magic can do it can only tip the scales so much. Remember, sir, I have never before today heard of someone who can influence a bullet.” Washington looks uncomfortable to be reminded of this singular skill. “Most of the time, a well placed shot will still has the desired effect.” 

“What purpose does it serve us then?” 

“That remains to be seen, your Excellency.” There’s no way yet to tell how their magic will work together, where it will prove most effective. Lafayette can hardly wait to try and cast together, but there’s groundwork that will need to be laid before that. “But I’m sure you’ll agree these are times when anything and everything can help.”

Washington sighs, looking as if he has no better mastery of the new shape his circumstances have taken. “I must admit that this all still this defies belief.”

“I assure it is all true.” 

“So you say.”

Lafayette cannot help but feel as if he’s only completed part of his task. He meant at all points in this meeting to show the General that his magic was a cause for hope, and yet there’s hardly been a flicker of relief or solace upon Washington’s face. Lafayette decides it is time to remove the last traces of doubt. 

“Sir, may I beg your leave to try something?” 

Washington nods although it is hardly at all enthusiastically. 

Lafayette grabs a chair from the corner and sets it on the other side of Washington’s desk, facing the General. He then sits down, and moves a candle from the edge of the desk and places it in the center. 

“If you will allow me,” Lafayette says gently as he reaches out. Washington looks from the candle to Lafayette, waiting for some next step to become apparent. “Your hands, sir.” 

The General's brow, previously lowered in suspicion, raises in faint surprise. His hands are resting on his knees where they are spread beneath the desk, but he lifts them up, palms turned downward. They are very large, quite capable looking, and scarred with small nicks and indentations from years of work and fighting. In comparison Lafayette’s own hands so clearly belong to a callow youth. Furthering his mortification, a spark jump between his fingertips and Washington’s warm, calloused palms when he takes the General’s hands in his. With no small amount of exasperation Lafayette wonders how many times he must blush tonight. 

Carefully he manipulates Washington’s hands until they are on either side of the candle’s flame. He checks to be sure that he has moved them just close enough that Washington will be able to comfortably feel the heat of it on his skin. 

“There. If you would keep your hands there, please, your Excellency.” 

Washington nods his reluctant assent, eyes cast down towards their clasped hands. Lafayette at last remembers to let go. 

“Now, please focus upon the flame and extinguish with only your will.” Washington looks quite taken aback by the request, but Lafayette smiles at him in guileless reassurance. “I know that this may seem to impossible, but I assure you it is not. Not for someone who can make bullets miss him.” 

After some consideration, Washington seems willing to give it a try. He returns his gaze to the candle, then a moment later closes his eyes. 

“Ah, ah. Eyes open, your Excellency,” Lafayette chides gently. The General opens his eyes and looks up at him yet again. “Study the flame and with your will alone bid it to go out.”

Washington sighs, clearly unaccustomed and perhaps not comfortable with being instructed by a man so much his junior. Lafayette’s gaze travels between the same three points, the General’s serious and determined face, his steady hands as they cup the candle’s flame, and the flame itself. For a little while nothing happens, and Lafayette must bite his lip to keep from giving the man more advice and encouragement. 

The air in the room changes, at first almost imperceptibly then all in a rush. It is the same as the moment before a storm breaks, the pressure of the room dropping and the air smelling of the earth readying for the rain. The brunt of Washington’s forceful intention snuffs out the flame as Lafayette watches. It’s entirely different from when a candle is blown out by breath or wind. The flame doesn’t dance or flicker, it simply dies from the wick up. 

Washington looks the unlit candle in naked surprise. Lafayette smiles, quite pleased. “As I said, easy for a man such as yourself.” He leans forward, “Now light it. I assure you, you can.” 

It takes noticeably longer for Washington to light the candle, but Lafayette is hardly surprised. It was the same when he himself was taught the trick. Something in the human mind is much more prepared for a candle to be extinguished without obvious means than to see a flame come to life from nothing. Lafayette is more patient this time, watching Washington’s face more intently than the wick. 

At some point, Washington must become frustrated with the wait. A deep furrow appears between his brows, he inhales sharply and as he does suddenly the candle lights. The flame doesn’t politely come into being, but explodes like gunpowder ignited. Washington pulls his hands quickly away the eruption of the flame and Lafayette leans back from the desk sharply. 

Washington is clearly startled by the unruly combustion, but Lafayette cannot help but laugh and clap even if is a bit childish to do so. “Fantastic, sir! You have a masterful will, truly.” 

“Thank you,” Washington says distractedly still staring at the candle flame as if it could again explode at any moment. He clears his throat, “I think, however, that should be quite enough for tonight. There are still other things I must do before I retire.” 

Lafayette sighs. He has helped Washington to complete his first intentional magic and still he has failed to spark any kind of hope or confidence. He would try again, try all night, but the General’s demeanor has hardened once again into something like marble. It will do no good to entreat a stone. 

Yet he does. He bows to take his leave and moves toward the door as the General at last returns to his letter, but when Lafayette’s hand touches the doorknob he pauses.

“Sir,” he says, turning back.

Looking rather impatient, Washington pauses in his letter and gives Lafayette his attention again. 

“I know that you have had to bear a great many burdens all on your own thus far, and unfortunately I know that you will continue to do so.” Washington shifts uncomfortably, as if somehow unsure of how to acknowledge the weight of that truth. “I wish you to know that this at least is not something you will have to handle alone.” 

Washington does not go so far as to favor Lafayette with anything so overt as a smile, but something in his expression, the set of his jaw, the tension around the eye, does become gentler. “Thank you, Marquis.” 

Lafayette feels the corners of his lips rise a little, pleased to at last feel as though he has done the General a kindness. He lowers his head in a small, humble bow and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering about why I chose the winter imagery in Washington's description of Lafayette's magic: he's basically saying that Lafayette's magic smells like Christmas. Because wouldn't it? I mean if I had to sum him up it would be "like a cinnamon roll on Christmas morning, where the secret ingredient is liberty."
> 
> I am working on part two as we speak. Get ready for the obligatory Brandywine chapter!
> 
> Also I'm on [tumblr](http://fickleobsessions.tumblr.com) and I'm crazy up for talking about hamslash.


	2. Mutual Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette's got a lot to learn about America. Washington has got a lot to learn about magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to [ossapher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ossapher) for encouragement and beta reading!

Though Lafayette hopes to receive a summons first thing in the morning, one does not come. Left to loose ends, he decides to venture out to make some purchases at the apothecary. Unfortunately the available inventory is disappointing, depleted after long months of disrupted trade. Many of the better herbs from the Far East are conspicuously missing and were apparently never in great supply to begin with. Still Lafayette is able to purchase antimony, sulphur, oxide bismuth, and silver nitrate, as well as oil of wormwood, colchicum seed, candleberry, bugle weed and a small amount of ambergris. It may still be necessary to send for more from his family’s stores in France, but with this he can at least make a decent start of things with the General.

Lafayette returns to his quarters find there has been no summons in his absence, and by the time he has completed his midday meal there is still nothing. He takes the opportunity to write to his Adrienne. 

He can mention nothing of Washington’s magic, though he’s wishes desperately to confide in her. He knows several methods of concealment of course, but letters -- no matter how well bound and charmed -- still too often fall victim to fiends. Once it arrives in France the letter could be revealed to any gossip with a bit of magic. Instead Lafayette states simply (but emphatically) that he finds the General to be a great man that he hopes to develop a most intimate confidence with him. He assures her again of his heartfelt belief that he has made the right choice in coming to America, and that he is optimistic of a glorious but short campaign. 

At the bottom of the last page he allows the ink to drip upon the corner of the paper where it spatters into three abstract shapes. Lafayette hovers the tip of his index finger just above them and the ink gathers politely into a single bead upon the page. He thinks of his Adrienne and breathes in and out several times slowly before he allows his resolve to slip loose and influence the ink. It flows first into the delicate lines of a heart, then a portion of the ink bleeds into the center where it outlines a rose that changes from a bud to a full bloom. Then it reverses, the bloom becomes the bud, disappears again into the heart, which consolidates into a perfect circle that bursts into three points of splattered ink. 

When his wife receives it she will know to pass her hand over it and set the ink back into motion. If there is not too long of a delay before reaching her the magic should still be strong. He has not had a letter yet from her, and he hopes that when at last one arrives it will carry a hint of her presence. Adrienne’s magic is a delicate type, constant but airy like a steady breeze. He wonders if it can linger on a letter for the entirety of a sea voyage. He hopes so, and tells himself it shall. Though her magic lacks force, she’s always made up the difference by being clever. 

Lafayette folds and seals the letter, then thinks of writing to his father-in-law. Before he can take up another leaf of paper, there is a knock on his door. He calls an answer and into the room steps a soldier about his own age. He cuts smart figure in his uniform, trim and compact, but energetic. He is bright eyed, and projects an easy nature. 

“Sir, I am here to inform you,” he says in clear, and lightly accented French, “that his Excellency, General Washington, requests the pleasure of conferring with you.” 

“Ah, my mother tongue,” Lafayette responds in kind, pressing his palm to his chest in a theatrical gesture. “To whom do I owe the pleasure of hearing it?” 

“John Laurens,” the soldier bows gracefully and Lafayette returns it with a nod of his head. “And to some extent as well to the General’s aide,” Laurens continues as he straightens up. “He decided his other tasks were of too great importance to bother traversing between your lodgings and the General’s. He knows I speak French and has asked me to do it in his stead.” 

Lafayette stands and takes up his jacket from the back chair to put it on. “And you agreed to help him shirk his duty?”

“I’d agree to take on any task if it will help General Washington to take notice of me.” Lafayette glances at him, and he explains, “I have my mind set on becoming an officer.”

Lafayette smiles, both appreciating the candor and recognizing a kindred afflicted with high ambition. He sets to securing his sword to his belt. “Have you met the General?” 

Laurens shakes his head, “Not yet, I’m sorry to say. But I have seen him. I’ve even been in the same room.” His face lights up with sudden inspiration. “Say, if you wanted to help a fellow soldier, you could claim to need me to remain with you as a translator. I promise I won’t make you regret it.” 

It’s a bold request, and one not apparently made in any seriousness. Lafayette does not take offense. “That would be a great benefit to you, I’m sure,” he answers, changing now to English. “But at what cost to me if it the General decides I cannot speak for myself?” 

Laurens raises his eyebrows in surprise at the switch to English. Realizing his idea has not much merit, he sighs. “True, sir.” He seems not to be too disappointed. “But nothing sought, nothing gained. I do warn you though, that I will do my best to appear uncommonly smart and indispensable when I announce you to him.” 

“I would expect nothing less than a spirited attack on his defenses by so bold a soldier,” Lafayette banters back. “What of the shirker? Won’t he find himself in trouble when the General finds the task has been reassigned to you?” 

Laurens laughs and opens the door for Lafayette. “Oh, the General already knows Hamilton is trouble, that will come as no surprise to him.” 

They continue to chat amiably on their way to the General. Lafayette finds many sound reasons for the instant liking he took to Laurens. To start, Laurens has been to the continent, having studied in Geneva and London. When he heard of the war for independence, he dedicated his heart to the fight and returned to America to fight despite warnings from his family. He speaks with a clear and obvious passion for the cause that mirrors Lafayette’s own. In no time at all, Lafayette feels a keen regret that given the differences in their rank it is not likely he will often be able to see this young man. At least not until he advances.

As promised once they reach the General’s headquarters Laurens introduces Lafayette with a flourish, exhibiting a very a smart bow and a noticeably capable pronunciation of the Marquis’s name. Washington is far too composed to smile, but Lafayette thinks he spies a faint light of amusement in the General’s eyes. Whether it is because of the eager soldier’s attempts to impress him or because the aide tasked with finding Lafayette is nowhere in sight, he can’t be sure. 

When Washington dismisses Laurens, his voice cannot exactly be described as friendly, but neither is it curt or dismissive. The young man’s exhilaration at being addressed by the General is clear, and Lafayette wonders if Washington ever tires of being the object of so much regard. If so, Lafayette can only regret his contributing to it. He has no idea himself of how to stop. 

Laurens’ departure leaves them alone. 

Washington gestures to a chair near to his desk. “Please sit,” he says as he does the same. 

“Thank you,” Before taking his seat, Lafayette nudges the chair a bit closer to the desk. Washington does not fail to notice, but makes no move to change their arrangement. There is still an undeniable sense that they are strangers, but Lafayette is eager to strike a rapport. “I hope the day finds you well.” 

“As well as can be expected after spending half the night in thought,” Washington replies, thankfully without real irritation. 

Lafayette cannot help a small wince of guilt. To pile cares upon a man already so beset with them was the furthest from his intent. 

“I have several questions,” the General says to start their business. He seems, at least in the light of day, determined to make himself the master of his new circumstances. “Before we provide ourselves with a more comprehensive strategy I did think it prudent to at least get some idea of the possibilities, even if they are not likelihoods.”

Lafayette nods, happy to help in whatever way he can. 

“Can magic manage in any way at all to produce more gunpowder?” 

This first question hints to Lafayette the General’s chief concern will be a lack of supplies, and it pains him not to be able to give a more hopeful answer. “In the strictest sense, no. It can provide something of a substitute, but it can be unpredictable in its strength which is dangerous.” 

Washington nods, but his disappointment is clear. 

“But,” Lafayette notes, “gunpowder which has gotten too wet or damaged and is now inert? That we can most likely fix.” 

“As many misfortunes as the militia have allowed their stores in the past, I’m sure that would prove useful,” the General says dryly. He is then silent as he scratches a note to himself on a sheet of paper. Once finished he looks up, “I assume we will neither be able to produce artillery out of thin air?”

Lafayette shakes his head, “There’s not very much at all that can be created out of nothing, sir. If you have sufficient supplies of wood and iron we could perhaps shape it, but if you had the wood and iron you needed I believe would have found means to manufacture guns.”

Washington’s sigh is a clear agreement with this assumption. 

“Still if you have broken muskets or cannon, it is quite possible we have the will necessary to repair them.” This at least seems to be good news, the resignation turning to interest in the General’s face. Lafayette smiles, “We will need to think of a good fiction to account for our being able to produce them.” 

“I’m sure that can be arranged.” Another notation is made, and then the General’s thinking changes course. “If supplies are not to be conjured from nothing, are subtler things more likely?”

“Such as, sir?” 

“Invisible ink.” 

Lafayette frowns, confused. “But invisible ink already exists, General.”

“Yes,” Washington says in a patient sort of way, “And the means to make it reappear is widely known. I’d prefer our secrets were better kept, made apparent to only those who have been told the method. I have for a long time wanted for something that will disappear once dried and only appear again when a single, specific solution was applied.” 

“Ah,” Lafayette says, thoughtfully. As a method of intrigue it strikes a practical compromise. By requiring only a single application of magic to the ink and solution, the items could then be shared with anyone and explained away as simple chemistry. “This is something I do think we could manage. To make ink disappear is easy enough, it’s then only a matter of finding the right solution to bring it back.”

Lafayette contemplates how to accomplish it. “Easiest to manage would be some mixture containing blood.” 

“Blood?” the General asks.

Lafayette nods, “It’s most conducive to magic, and it remembers spells for a very long time. It’s potent, too. It will not take much if the animal is killed properly. Perhaps just a few drops mixed with a diluted, clear spirit.” 

Washington’s expression clearly implies that he finds the idea distasteful. “I think that would lead to an amount of waste we cannot entirely afford. Soldiers want for meat too often.”

Lafayette suspects that Washington’s misgivings owe more to disdain for anything that too much resembles the occult. He decides not to press the issue so early. “In that case a mineral suspended in the right solution could have the same effect. I purchased some antimony earlier, that could work nicely. The effect would be lovely too. The letters will shimmer in the light.” 

“Wouldn’t that run the danger of exposing the extraordinary nature of its source?” 

Lafayette shrugs his shoulders broadly, “You may be surprised what people will believe to be a new product of science and reason. But if it worries you, sir, there are other options. Galène, for example, if we can only get our hands upon it.”

“Galène?” The General’s pronunciation of the French is ever so slightly clumsy. Lafayette pretends not to notice.

“It’s a black mineral,” he answers. “Soft and easy to crush into a powder. It streaks black if you rub it on paper like a proper ink so it will be easy to disguise.”

Washington seems heartened by that. He makes another note, speaking this time as he writes. “We’ll need to get you a contact. Someone who can find and obtain what you might need for endeavors like this.” 

“This is very true, sir. But if we are to do anything with what we may obtain there are some fundamentals we should practice.” 

“Ah,” Washington says, cooly. He replaces the quill in its stand. “Very well.” 

Lafayette stands up, he’s always preferred to work while moving. “As we begin I must warn you that I have never been a tutor. If my lessons are not clear, you must forgive me, sir, and tell me if you can how I may improve. Still I think I know a good place to start, a bit of magic that can be of much use. Does this suit you, sir?”

Washington sits back in his chair, “Seeing as how I am hardly in a position to propose a better method, please proceed.” 

“Excellent. May I have your sword, sir?” 

Washington considers him a moment, looking perhaps for any hint of a jest in Lafayette’s request. Finding none, he stands and from the scabbard hanging at his side unsheathes his sword. The image of a man so tall and serious with blade drawn is nothing short of thrilling for Lafayette, like a victory painting come to life. In precise, sure movements the General turns his sword over and places the blunt edge of the blade to rest atop the sleeve of his coat. He presents the hilt for Lafayette to take. 

Etiquette dictates Lafayette should inspect the the sword with a proper respect. It appears to be American made, solidly constructed and neatly but not ostentatiously adorned. Thanks to the height of its owner, the blade is longer than most, curved and perfectly polished. The green ivory grip is shaped to rest easily in the hand. It is, Lafayette realizes, a sword intended to withstand honest use. By wearing it here in the city, it’s as if the General wishes to be ready for battle at any given moment. 

“It is very fine,” Lafayette says. Certainly he has seen more sophisticated blades, but there is a classic elegance to it that charms him. Washington acknowledges the compliment with a slight bow of his head. 

“Now,” Lafayette says, turning the hilt in his hand so the blade is held across his torso. Lightly he grasps the tip of the sword between his thumb and forefinger and projects his magic. The blade appears to curl in on itself like a clockwork spring. 

He looks to the General for comment. 

“I assume,” Washington says calmly, “that there is a remedy for that.” 

“Of course,” Lafayette says. He flicks his wrist lightly and the blade sings between them, straightening again with a snap. 

At seeing his sword made right again, a corner of Washington’s mouth rises just a little. “And the use for this trick?” 

“That will require a second demonstration, I think.” Washington watches Lafayette carefully as he repeats the magic, curling the blade in upon itself. “Now, if you would inspect the sword please.” 

Washington comes closer and Lafayette clarifies, “From the hilt, sir.” 

He reaches out and closes careful fingers along the flat of the blade. He moves them up and where the blade appears to begin curving to Washington’s eyes, his fingers instead find no fault. In the face of contradictory proofs Lafeyette’s illusion cannot be sustained. It immediately dissipates and Washington sees the sword between them with clear eyes.

“So it was never altered at all,” Washington says.

“No, sir.” Finished, he carefully presents the hilt to the General.

“I see,” he says, sheathing the sword once again. “It seems to me that was a risky sort of lesson. If someone had come in to find you standing with perfectly sound sword in your hand and myself unarmed it might have caused quite stir.” 

Lafayette laughs, “To be sure. But where you would have seen the sword, they would have seen nothing at all in my hand.” 

Washington sits down at his desk again as he ponders this. “So you may show two illusions at once and to different persons?” 

Lafayette nods. "With practice, yes." 

“I believe I begin to see the use.” 

“Would you like to try it, sir?” 

In truth the General does not seem so eager, but he nods his head once. 

“To accomplish requires a clarity of vision. In your mind you must see, as clearly if it was true, what you wish me to see. It must shift from being seen in your mind, to being seen before you. And then you must project it. You must will it to be seen by myself. With practice that can happen simultaneously.” 

“A rather vague set of instructions,” Washington points out.

“Alas that magic is more a talent than a science, General.”

Still Washington seems unconvinced. “One can have an innate talent for something like dancing but still have a set of clear steps.” 

Lafayette smiles and sits back down beside him. “Magic is more like the music that plays than the dance. I can give you only the shape of it, but the inspiration to make it is born with you, not myself. It will help to start with something simple.”

Despite his clear misgivings, the General nods. After casting his eyes about for a likely object, he takes up a quill. Not the one he’d used for his notes, but one with the nib freshly cut and clean. Some moments pass, Washington twirling the feather back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. Then still more time. He sighs and shakes his head. 

“I apologize, I’m not in the habit of daydreaming.” 

“But this is not a detriment,” Lafayette protests. “Dreams are imprecise. To project an illusion you must see things concretely.” 

As Washington considers this new prompt, Lafayette feels for the edges of the General’s magic. He finds it just as powerful before, but rigidly restrained. 

“Your mind will supply the image, sir, but the magic makes it appear. You must engage them both to accomplish this, sir.” 

Washington nods but when he shifts in his seat it hardly appears as if he is relaxing. Lafayette supposes it is not so surprising that the General prefers a perfect control. All his life he must have had the reins of this magic in his hands without even knowing what he was directing, what was always fighting him to break free. Tentatively the magic stirs, pushing free from Washington’s restraint with a steady rising pressure. 

Lafayette can sense it at work, but as yet sees no change. He notices that Washington’s concentration is entirely focused upon the quill in his hand. 

“Remember, sir,” Lafayette says, “you must send it to me. Push the thought to me as though it were a physical object.” 

Tuned as he is to the General’s magic, Lafayette can feel it as it presses toward him. The quill has been stripped of much of the fronds, save for a tidy little fan at the top. As Washington’s magic grows in its insistence, Lafayette watches as the quill is made whole again. Barbs sprout from the shaft and filling out until it looks as if the quill was freshly plucked from the wing of the goose. 

“Very good sir!” 

Washington regards the quill with a detached curiosity. “It’s peculiar, but I can see both the illusion and the reality at once.” As he speaks the image falters, and Lafayette begins to see past the image being projected to him. 

“The more you focus on the true shape of it, the flimsier the illusion will become.” 

Washington diverts his focus and the illusion once again becomes solid. He turns it in his hand, and Lafayette finds no fault in the feather.

“Most convincing, sir, but I’m sure there is still more you can do. Try and change the color now.” 

Washington accepts his challenge, and a moment later the quill turns from white to a bright scarlet red. Lafayette grins his approval. Washington then flicks it in an imitation of Lafayette’s handling of his sword. The quill returns to its true state, white and cropped and quite ordinary. 

It is, all things considered, a very encouraging show of what he will be able to accomplish given time. The General’s control, despite having kept the magic so long asleep, also seems to allow him to more easily focus on the application of it. 

“Perhaps we should attempt something bigger,” Lafayette wonders. 

“Not impressed?” Washington asks. Lafayette is either so bold or so impertinent that he teases the General by raising his shoulders in a broad shrug. 

Washington gives him a wry look then shifts his attention to concentrate on his answer to the challenge. Lafayette sits in barely restrained impatience, making frequent checks of the General’s magic. Certainly it seems to be at work, filling the air with clean, electric smell of rain, but Lafayette can see nothing changed at all in the room. Washington is so long in thought that Lafayette succumbs for the first time to boredom in his presence. It is torture not to be able to fidget or move or speak, but he maintains his composure. He has just began to worry that Washington is truly struggling, when the General he nods once at Lafayette as if he’s finished. 

Lafayette looks around the room again, but there is no illusion that he can detect. “Your Excellency,” he says still turning his head from left to right. “I am sorry but-”

“No?” Washington asks, raising an eyebrow at him. Lafayette shrugs helplessly. “The window, Marquis.” 

Frowning Lafayette looks at the window. It’s just as plain as it was before, six panes of thick glass with the city beyond it. Lafayette blinks, because actually he cannot see the city at all. 

Where there was Philadelphia he sees now the view from a high bluff above a river. Quickly he stands up and goes to the window, hands gripping the sill as he leans in until his nose nearly bumps the glass. Through it he sees an unfamiliar country with gently rolling hills, thickly wooded with trees of several types. Across the wide, smoothly flowing river the trees extend right up to the bank, but immediately before him is a soft, green lawn. From window to horizon the landscape is uninterrupted by any building that Lafayette can see. As he looks he is delighted to realize that the clouds above the river are drifting slowly across the sky. The trees even sway in the breeze. It is a picture perfect illusion. 

Behind him he hears the sound of Washington’s boots as they cross the floor. A moment later he senses that Washington has come close enough to look out the window as well. 

“Sir, this is amazing.” Lafayette turns to look at him and finds their faces are very close. His breath catches in his throat, caught there for a moment by the overwhelming proximity. Washington does not seem to notice, too busy regarding his illusion beyond the glass. Lafayette is grateful to have his blush go unnoticed. 

He forces himself to breathe again, and catches the scent of lemon and cloves: Washington's cologne. Lafayette turns back to the window. “How did you come up with so perfect an image?” 

“This is the view out my back door at Mount Vernon.” This close the husky quality to the General’s voice is even more pronounced. It buzzes in Lafayette’s ear and sets goosebumps raising along the back of his neck. “You said to choose an image I can envision clearly and there’s not a single part of that land that I cannot see to the last detail.” 

For once the General’s voice is brimming with warmth and affection. His love for his home is unmistakable. Lafayette looks at the landscape with a renewed interest and once again the clarity of the image astounds him. “It is gorgeous, sir.” He looks back to Washington and this time is not startled by their closeness. “Not only the view, but the magic itself.” 

Washington looks away from the window long enough to smile, actually smile, at Lafayette. Closed lipped and subtle, the expression is by no means effusive or emphatic, but that does not diminish the effect on Lafayette in the slightest. From his short time knowing the General he has an idea such shows of pleasure are likely rare, and fleeting. He commits it in detail to his memory.

As he anticipated, the smile fades when the General turns away from the window with a last yearning glance and returns to his desk to make a note. “Can such illusions be repeated to a larger audience?” he asks. 

“Audience, sir?” 

“Yes, a British regiment standing across a field from an inferior American force for example.”

“Ah,” Lafayette says. “I see your meaning.” 

From the mountaintop of an unexpected smile Lafayette tumbles into the valley of an annoyed frown. “I have a premonition your answer will be no.” 

“I am afraid you are correct,” Lafayette says. “That you can create a convincing illusion of the right scope and size is not in doubt. But the other part of the magic, the projection of it to another. It’s difficult to do for a great number of people, and from a distance even harder.” 

“Very well,” Washington says, though it hardly seems as if he thinks so. 

“At the same time, General, I think you know that there are times when there is only one man you need to convince.” Washington’s looks at him in a clear prompt for clarification. “If their commander is in the field, within a distance where the illusion can influence him, it’s likely he would not think to guess it was magic. His officers, if they are worth anything, will of course convince him what he sees is not true, but there will be a hesitation. One that we may exploit if prepared.”

Thankfully Washington seems to find this idea encouraging, even asking for Lafayette’s sketch of what such a battle would look like. Lafayette excitedly sketches out for him a battlefield blended from the many old maps he’d studied as a child. He blocks out imaginary battalion positions and movements. They talk for a while of more mundane military matters. The General is more animated upon this familiar ground, though Lafayette detects here and there a reluctance to be fully candid. By the end of this conversation he feels they have reached an understanding. They may speak to each other, if not as equals, as kindreds, as soldiers cut from a common cloth. 

“I am of course very eager to provide you with such outcomes, sir,” Lafayette says. “And I believe command of a division will allow me to win victories in your name. And two aides naturally to help me with the many details.” 

Nothing at all changes in Washington’s expression or carriage, yet his stillness makes Lafayette’s stomach drop. Pleas and promises crowd against Lafayette’s closed lips, but he forces himself to await his General’s orders.

Washington clears throat carefully. “I fear that Congress has been both too free and too sparing in their communication with you.” 

Lafayette loses his battle for silence. “Sir-” 

But Washington does not allow him the interruption. “Your appointment was described to myself and I assume also to you as being honorary in nature.” 

“It was, sir.” He shall not lie to his commander. “But now you know that I have skills beyond many of your current officers. I must have men to lead or I am pointless.” 

Washington is not moved in the slightest. “Whether I see your merits or not, this army is on every point to recognize and subordinate itself to civilian control. I’m sorry, Marquis, I have no doubt you will take this very hard, but if Congress determined your rank to be honorary, I cannot -- at this juncture at least -- contradict them.” 

Overcome, Lafayette turns his face sharply away from the General. Better that he assume the extent of Lafayette’s reaction than be given all necessary proof of the stinging tears he is trying to blink away. To come all this way, to be willing to give so much and to get so little. Frustrated isn’t even the word.

So long does it take him to regain mastery of himself that finally Washington sighs. “For now, let me welcome you into my military family. As an aide de camp you will be the embodiment of my orders to the men. It will confer to you a suitable stature.” 

Swallowing a final time, Lafayette turns back to him. He keeps his trained upon the floor, unable to risk looking Washington in the eye. “That’s very kind, sir.” 

“You may not know it,” Washington says, sounding kinder now that he is assured of Lafayette’s compliance. “But I made a similar sacrifice in my youth, and for less defensible reasons I am quite sure.” 

Lafayette looks up, made curious by this admission. Washington has leaned forward, and appears in every way sincere in his effort to comfort him. He cannot help but take heart. Taking a deep breath he reminds himself that he is only just arrived. “I understand, sir. My first battle will be proving myself, and I will not yield.” 

Washington inclines his head in recognition of the vow. He considers something, then says, “I am scheduled to review fortifications on the Delaware at four o’clock today. It would do me a great honor if you would join me.” 

Though the request is formal, it seems genuine. Lafayette takes it as a reason to hope that he will not be discarded. He stands, and bows. “Of course, sir. I will go and make ready.” 

Though his disappointment lingers long into the day it is hard not to feel better after an afternoon on horseback. He enjoys riding alongside the General very much. When he was busy collecting tales of Washington Lafayette was assured he was a natural horseman, and it is yet another confirmed truth about him. Washington sits tall and easy in the saddle, every command recognized by his handsome white mount and immediately obeyed. Riding at Washington’s side places Lafayette in the direct path of so much adoration and awe that it is hard to feel he is not acknowledged. He does not set aside his desire for a command, far from it. His reputation, his ambition with accept nothing less. But if he has not earned it yet, he will do all that is asked of him until he does.

He is invited again to dine with the General, and this appears to cause some interest in the other officers attending. Though Lafayette listens intently he never catches a comment that explains why they are so surprised to see him. Feeling on display and thus more aware of his words and actions, he finds himself exhausted afterward. He does not accept the invitation to linger over another glass of wine after the plates are cleared, pleading a desire to write his father-in-law.

The night air is exceedingly muggy, heavy on the skin and cloying to breathe. If there is a breeze to be had it is not strong enough to slip between the buildings and find him on the street. The walk back to his tavern becomes a slog and he takes little notice of his surroundings. It comes as quite a surprise then, when passing by a group of Continental soldiers that one calls out to him. 

“Ah, if it isn’t the venerable General’s new aide de camp.” 

Lafayette looks up, startled. Before him is Laurens; he’s broken away from a group of his comrades to approach him. His expression is noticeably guarded as he addresses Lafayette. “You know, sir, I had hoped that in light of you already being a Major General you might leave a little room in the General’s staff for a certain hopeful soldier.” 

To his conflicted feelings about becoming an honorary aide Lafayette now adds a fear that Laurens will let jealousy tarnish any friendship between them before it can formed. “I am sorry, sir. You must know that I in no way sought this appointment. It was not my aim at all to-” 

Lafayette stops as an amused grin appears on Laurens’ face. He shakes his head and says fondly, “My dear sir. I had already decided not to bear you any ill will, but I appreciate that you make it so easy to forgive you.” 

He is quite touched by the man’s easy warmth. Lafayette has never met someone who was so readily willing to treat him as a friend. Of course, he has friends back home. Very close ones indeed, but those friendship developed only after a time. In his world, every introduction to a peer started a courtly game of competition and intrigue that one had no choice but to play. 

“Thank you,” he says with real gratitude. “I truly meant it, though. I did not come here to be an aide.” 

Laurens chuckles, “Nor did I, but still the General’s family is as good a place as any to start. And for you to be included is certainly something to marvel at.”

“What do you mean?” Taken one way Laurens’ comment could be seen as an insult implying Lafayette had no business being on the General's staff. Yet that would be at clear odds with his friendliness. 

Laurens looks uncomfortable as he thinks of how to answer. “I am sure you know that as of late there's been no shortage of French officers volunteering their services to the General.” 

Lafayette nods; he knows of several that came earlier this year. Indeed he intends to rendezvous with them soon and pay his respects to his countrymen.

“Well, I am told the General has not been much impressed by them, nor expressed any desire to bring them into his confidence.” Lafayette cannot hide his surprise. Laurens continues, “He is correct in his manner towards them of course, and he knows well their value to the cause. But that he has been so open with you is of note.”

To hear his interactions with Washington described as open makes Lafayette pull an even more surprised expression. What candor he has managed with the man has been hard won, and still he longs for more. 

“I had no idea,” Lafayette murmurs. 

It's becoming ever more clear that the game he played his entire life in France is much altered here if not an altogether different game. It will take time, he thinks, to learn the way of this young country. It's simultaneously daunting and hopeful. He'd never been able to master the moves and rules of French society, despite his considerable advantages, but here he has a new chance. 

“Thank you,” he says to Laurens, “for telling me. I did not know.” 

Laurens waves away his gratitude good-naturedly, “No thanks are necessary. Just promise me that if there’s ever a task where you need a man who will not let you down to think of me as a candidate.” 

Lafayette swears this easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so. No Brandywine in this chapter. Sorry! I lied! Why? Because I accidentally got REALLY INTO researching for this fic. So instead of just kind of breezing through things I was like, "What if I just... lived in this fic a while?" The bonus is getting to know Laurens, though. And 100% promise Brandywine in the next chapter. Also, this is where it started being fun blending Hamilton into the historical stuff so that Laurens knows Hamilton pretty well already and puts on a little bit of a braggy show when he first meets people.
> 
> Also I'm on [tumblr](http://fickleobsessions.tumblr.com/) and I'm always up for talking hamslash.


	3. Brandywine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette gets his first taste of action. It's not what he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, thank you so much to [Ossapher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ossapher/pseuds/ossapher), mostly for providing beta skills but also for having as many feelings as I do about dead revolutionaries. Any mistakes you see are the result of me not knowing when to leave well enough alone.

Days pass by in fits and starts. Some days are so busy that Lafayette barely has time to think between the meetings, councils, lessons, and correspondence. Other days he is left almost entirely to boredom and loose ends. He does his best to make the days he receives an apologetic note from the General that other duties will require his full attention useful. He confers with his contact about the ingredients and elements he’d like to collect, and to that list he adds mundane items he will need for the summer’s campaigns. He listens -- not always when people are aware that he is -- and learns as much as he can. 

He meets the French officers who had arrived earlier in spring as well. Lafayette expects to find them eager for glory, but eager is not quite the word. Expectant would perhaps be better. They crossed the Atlantic with promises and contracts describing commissions and salaries they did not find waiting for them. Embittered, they find everything about the Continental Army to be poor and disappointing including, Lafayette is astonished to realize, General Washington. 

“He is too cold blooded to be a truly great general,” Baron de Kalb announces over the meal. Lafayette’s countrymen are quick to nod their agreement. “He ponders too much. He takes the wrong advice. But the Americans? They do not realize there are better hands to have at the tiller.” 

It is on the tip of Lafayette’s tongue to protest that Washington would have surpassed them all by now if he’d had even a quarter of their education on magic. Yet before he can speak it strikes him that the General’s hidden power has not yet been brought up by anyone this evening. 

“Have you all met the General?” he asks. 

There are nods from almost everyone at the table. 

Lafayette can hardly believe it. Assembled around him are representatives of many of France’s old families, and while it seems impossible they would not have magic, how else to explain such ignorance? Always in and out of Paris, and usually in and out of the good opinion of others, Lafayette had always assumed that he’d simply been intentionally excluded from any practice of overt magic. He’d taken as a given that anyone who could allude to family legends of achievements in magic was in possession of sufficient power in their own right. How long would he have gone, Lafayette wonders, before catching them out on their lie?

Though it feels as rude as sniffing the air suspiciously, he gently reaches out to get some sense of their magic. He finds little more than hints and whispers, the strongest of which is centered around the Baron de Kalb. Among all the men in the room, Lafayette has seen only the Baron actually accomplish magic. The Baron has been a mentor much relied upon by Lafayette, but only for the basics of a practical war without magic. With many laurels to his career, de Kalb is not shy about the fact that his magic has very little force. He has a talent for the art of finding, but not much else. His illusions waver, his transfers of energy are small. He has not even enough power, apparently, to sense that Washington is more than meets the eye. 

This leaves Lafayette at a loss for how to explain his admiration for Washington. All but the Baron technically have little right to be in on such a secret. Lafayette also finds it easy to believe they would be quite jealous to learn an American has a power they can only pretend to have, and that could make them indiscreet. He decides he must remain silent on the subject, though it pains him. 

He sounds naively idealistic even to his own ears when he insists, “I think the General is a great man,” without providing any proofs.

As they continue to complain, their doubt ties Lafayette’s stomach in knots. He nibbles a corner of the crust of the bread served with their supper in a futile attempt to settle it. He cannot help but fret for his command. What he hoped to achieve in days or weeks has not yet been achieved by these men in several months. It is clear enough that the signed promises given by Silas Deane in Paris were a currency much diminished in value here in America. 

Happily, it becomes just as clear to Lafayette that he has underestimated the drive Laurens has to distinguish himself. Lafayette does not forget him. Hearing the General complain that there were never enough hours in a day for the letters that poured in without ceasing, he mentions Laurens and reminds Washington of his proficiency in French. Lafayette has no expectation of having his suggestion heeded immediately, though judging by the General’s reaction, the soldier’s name has come up before. Yet only a few days later Laurens calls to him from a bank of aides at work on correspondence. 

Lafayette waves him over, and Laurens confirms the wonderful news.

“I’m only a volunteer aide,” Laurens says, but he’s standing tall and straight-backed. Lafayette smiles at his pride. “But between your good opinion, Hamilton’s complaining, and my father giving his blessing to my service, I think it’s only a matter of time before something greater follows.” 

“I am sure of it,” Lafayette tells him. It cheers him immensely to a see a friend and fellow soldier advancing upon the purity of his intention, the worthiness of his spirit, just as he himself hopes to do.

Lafayette’s chance to do just that appears only a few days later in Chesapeake Bay. In the last days of August, General Howe finally makes his intentions clear. He will make for Philadelphia from the south, and everyone is in agreement there must be a battle for the city soon. It is the perfect opportunity for Lafayette to prove himself. 

Shortly after the news arrives, the Continental Army marches in parade out of the city in order to make for its defense. Washington, silver spurs shining, a red plume in his hat, leads upon his grand white stallion. Lafayette follows just behind him, and they ride down the city streets with (he is told) some twelve thousand soldiers behind them. Above them women and children lean out windows, sometimes lifting up a song that is picked up by their neighbors. It feels like a dream. 

He cannot help looking back, and he sees Laurens riding smartly among the General’s other aides de camp. Beside him is a youth even more striking in looks, with a lean, somber face enhanced by large, expressive eyes. Even from a distance the young man’s eyes exude a burning intelligence, and it’s not more than a moment before he spots Lafayette looking and meets his gaze. Lafayette smiles at him, but receives no friendly gesture in reply. Instead the stranger turns to speak to Laurens, who laughs at his comment in a good-natured way. Lafayette remains curious, but he can feel his horse breaking formation and returns his attention to where he is going. 

Once outside Philadelphia and well in the surrounding country, Lafayette must admit that the excitement dies down quite a bit. Bored, he eventually tells Washington that he wishes to break formation to speak to a friend. The General looks back at him and nods, as if slightly surprised that Lafayette bothered to notify him. 

He urges his horse to the left-hand side of the road and turns it back to meet Laurens. Laurens is still precisely placed in the row with his fellow riders, but his posture is much more relaxed. He perks up when he spots Lafayette, and tells the soldier riding on the left edge to budge up. Lafayette works his mount into the space that rider leaves.

“Two hours and His Excellency never said a word,” Lafayette says in greeting. “Not to me or his other generals. I become desperate.” 

“Come and join us. What we may lack in quality of conversation, we can make up for in quantity.” The man he spotted riding beside Laurens earlier snorts, and Laurens glances toward his companion. “I should introduce you two at last. Marquis de Lafayette, meet Colonel Alexander Hamilton.” 

“Ah,” Lafayette says as Hamilton gives him a quick bow of his head. “At last I can thank you for your part in helping me to meet a friend.” 

Hamilton smiles in answer, although it appears directed more towards Laurens than to Lafayette. “If we’re clearing a ledger of gratitude, I suppose I should thank you for being the ingot that tipped the scale for the General.” He elaborates when Lafayette gives him a questioning look. “He’d already gotten wind of Laurens’ name from his father and myself, but hearing praises of his French from a Frenchman could not help but impress.” 

Laurens interjects, “I’m that rare intersection of merit and connection.” Though it’s a lighthearted comment, and on the face of it confident, it’s offered too sincerely as jest. Lafayette finds himself wanting to assure Laurens that this is indeed the case. He wonders at the change from the frank pride he’d seen earlier.

Before he can make any comment, Hamilton readily declares to Laurens there is no shortage of aides that Laurens will easily out-perform. Laurens shushes him quickly, reminding him of their present company, the row of aides riding behind them, talking amongst themselves. 

Hamilton does not continue but neither does he show any fear of having been overheard. He does at least distract Laurens from his chagrin by swearing softly, “Hell. I know you’ve told me to stop complaining about the unreasonable amounts of correspondence.”

“I have,” Laurens says, pointedly. 

“But it really is necessary for me to say again how much I hate it. All these long weeks I’ve wanted for exercise and now here I am, getting my fill of it, and I can’t wait to get off this bloody horse.” 

Laurens looks heavenward as if for strength, but he seems in a better mood. They chat for a while about such things young men in service of their country do: boasts and complaints of the quality of their horses, the various beauties that waved them out the city, and their longing for the right stage to prove themselves upon. That Hamilton is bright cannot be questioned, but there is something strange about him, too. His wit and charm feel dangerous, as if they are swords sheathed but ready. 

After some time they fall silent, and Hamilton makes a melancholy comment. “We ought to just circle around the city and head to New Jersey.” 

“Why do you say that?” Lafayette asks. 

Laurens huffs, and adjusts his reins testily as if he’d rather not continue the conversation. Hamilton ignores him. “There’s no winning this,” he says without any hint of doubt. “This is not an army meant to stand its ground. I’m not sure it even knows how.” 

Lafayette frowns, “Don’t you think we can win the war?” 

“The war? Absolutely,” Hamilton answers. “But the battle? No.” 

Lafayette wants to argue, but again finds he has no proofs that he can offer. He says instead, “I have faith.” He nods goodbye to each of them and squeeze his heels into his horse’s side until it starts to trot. Carefully he steers his way to ride beside the General.

“Sir,” he says, softly. “I know you say that we will be very busy now, but I think we should not fail to--” Lafayette thinks of how to put it, “to speak on the matter of a certain strategy.” 

Washington glances at him from the side of his eye, not bothering to turn his head much at all. “Very well,” he says eventually. “After we make camp.” 

 

They will make their stand at the Brandywine River. According to all reports they have a few days to make ready before Howe and his forces arrive, and it seems that nothing can be completed without complications. It is near impossible to find enough food; there is endless debate about where to set the lines, where to deploy the divisions. Despite everything there is a good morale among the men and officers. It touches Lafayette’s heart. Even knowing nothing of magic, the Americans do know the British troops are better clothed, fed, and trained. But they will fight. Lafayette does not doubt that if Americans learned of magic and realized that there was yet another card in the deck stacked against them, it would not daunt them. He lets that inspire him. He will give this battle, his first true battle, all he has. 

Unfortunately the most significant form help he can offer at this time is not shaping up to be of any real use. At least not when the General is so often too busy for Lafayette’s lessons. Every day he is plagued by questions from his generals seeking his approval on everything. Yet when Washington asks for their counsel, Lafayette sees that they all give strident opinions and sound much too sure of themselves. If their point of view is the sole dissention, they sound even more convinced. 

Amidst all this talk of tactics, Lafayette is keenly aware that have not yet struck upon a proper magical strategy. He wishes fiercely that Baron de Kalb were here, but the Baron has decided he will not bear the insult of a brevet rank. He did not march with the army, but insisted he would go back to France. His only advice to Lafayette upon leaving was to not let the Americans get him killed.

As Lafayette considers their options, he finds very few. Washington cannot yet project beyond a distance further than a few furlongs, leaving out any chance for them to use illusion as a distraction. They then discover an area of magic for which the General does not have a natural talent. For a frustrated hour Lafayette tries to explain how together they should be able to encourage current of the Brandywine to change, run even more swiftly and make crossing difficult. Though Lafayette feels they could achieve it with just a little more time, after an hour Washington checks his pocketwatch and simply shakes his head. 

The most useful thing that Lafayette manages is to ensure that all the fords and crossings marked on the map are made at least trickier. Over the course of a day he makes the riverbottom give up wide plains of thick, soft mud that will suck soldiers down to the knee at likely crossings. It’s not a day he very much enjoys, since at each crossing he is obliged to remove his boots and stockings and wade into the water at least to the ankle. He thinks his escort must find him unbecomingly eccentric, though he tries to explain each dip into the water as a desire for first hand review of the crossing.

Early in the morning on Thursday they receive word that the British and Hessian troops are on the move. Immediately upon hearing the news Lafayette makes for Washington’s headquarters: a canvas pole marquee erected upon high ground. He’s not even cleared the entrance of it before he is hit with the brunt of Washington’s magic: full of nervous energy, his power rolls and shakes the air like far-off thunder. 

Inside the tent Lafayette sees the visual proofs of Washington’s nerves upon his face. The signs are unmistakable, the deep furrow of his brow, a tremble of tension around his eyes, and his mouth in a firm, straight line. To approach him at such a time would surely count as an act of bravery, and Lafayette is not ashamed to admit that he decides to take a position at the outer edge of the men surrounding the General.

They hear the faint sound of the first shots being fired midmorning. The atmosphere, already charged with the General’s agitation, begins to smell of gunpowder. Dispatches confirm that Hessians are engaging them at Chad’s Ford as expected. All morning they continue to receive many updates, none of which are in agreement. The tense passage of hours without any hint of clarity about when Howe will appear does little to help the General’s mood. Several officers learn how unpleasant it is to fail to give him an answer to his questions. 

Lafayette frequently steps out of the tent to survey the river with his spy glass. It’s an heirloom from the days of his great-grandfather. Peering through it, he can see where his magic was done; it shines under the water as if the river bottom were lined with lamps. He can see, too, someone’s attempts to undo it. The air above the water ripples, pulling at the light of Lafayette’s magic as if some invisible creature were trying to tear it apart. Lafayette hopes to God it will hold. 

He worries, too, about a magic that feels just out of his reach. It’s a low, insidious thrum that refuses to be traced back to a source. Though he tries again and again to match the origin of it to some point on the horizon, it refuses to cooperate with his efforts. It seems most likely that it is magic belonging to Howe, and such a conclusion is bolstered by the fact that it grows gradually stronger with each passing minute. He thinks at first that he should tell the General, but upon consideration it’s a worthless piece of information. Washington already knows that Howe approaches. What he needs to know is from what direction, and that is precisely what Lafayette cannot tell him.

Though he puzzles upon this problem all afternoon he gets his answer at exactly the same time as Washington. Near two o’clock, a young officer bursts into the tent without so much as a salute or bow. “Your Excellency, sir, we’ve been outflanked! Howe and his army are at Osbourne’s Hill!” 

An excruciating silence follows this announcement. 

Then Washington clears his throat and asks the young soldier to confirm his report. 

“I saw it with my own eyes, sir.” He steps forward to the map upon the table, and points to a hill, north of their flank. “They’re here, sir. Howe and Cornwallis both.”

Washington looks at the man’s finger upon the map, then up at his assembled officers. “How is this possible? Where did they cross?” 

“I don’t know, sir,” says General Greene. “But we’ve got to pivot the line.” 

Throughout the debate that follows, Lafayette can hardly breathe. Ten thousand men at least at their flank. They are at the very brink of disaster and here he is, so very far from where he can do any good at all. 

“Sir,” Lafayette says, before the buzzing his ears has even stopped. “Please allow me to go into the field. I can help.” 

Many sets of eyes turn toward him, but Lafayette’s remain fixed on Washington. The General’s conflict about how to answer is obvious, but every second which passes increases the terrible feeling that they are about to lose everything. 

Lafayette cannot plead his case, not aloud, but he pushes his magic against the edges of Washington’s consciousness. He watches as Washington begins to sense it, hopes that it is not an unwelcome intrusion but a comforting reminder. A moment more passes before finally Washington sighs. 

“You are to join Lord Stirling in the field and aid him as he needs,” he says. Then, more firmly, “You are not to put yourself in unnecessary danger.” 

“Sir,” says General Greene. It seems a gentle request to reconsider.

Washington turns his head to look at his Major General and fixes him with a stare the shows plainly that a storm is held back by a thin thread. The General leaves Greene to choose if he will clip the thread by speaking.

Greene will not, and when that becomes clear Lafayette says, “I will need aides, sir. Hamilton and Laurens can-”

“Laurens,” Washington says interrupting. 

Laurens steps forward quickly, “Sir.” 

“Join the Marquis.” 

Hamilton gives the General a moment to call his name, then says, “Sir,” in a naked plea. “Sir, let me--” 

But Washington will not even hear him. “No.” 

Lafayette starts to say, “Your Excellency,” ready to press on Hamilton’s behalf, but Hamilton is too aggressively pursuing his own defense to let him speak. 

“Sir, I know artillery, I know the divisions, and I know--” 

The thread holding back the storm snaps. Washington’s broad hands slap the table before him as he stands from his chair, a sharp crack that for a second sounds as if the wood were actually splitting. No one, not even Hamilton, fails to flinch. 

“Hamilton,” Washington says. He does not yell but his voice snaps like a whip. “I ask for input often enough that I would think you would understand that when I do not ask for it, it is not wanted.” He then turns to Lafayette and Laurens and asks, “Do I need to repeat my orders to either of you, gentlemen?” 

Lafayette bows his head, showing himself ready to submit to Washington’s will. He turns to leave and Laurens hesitates only a moment before he comes with him. As they pass Hamilton, Laurens reaches out his hand to grip the other man’s shoulder tightly, but Hamilton remains rigid, staring straight forward, and too angry to say a word of goodbye to his friend. 

He can think of nothing to say to Laurens as their horses are readied, and Laurens does not choose to break the silence either. Not until they are mounted does Lafayette find a thought worth speaking.

“With great honor and care, Laurens.” 

Laurens, looking determined, nods at him. “Lead the way, Marquis.” 

Together they spur their horses toward the sound of cannon fire. They cover the few miles between headquarters and the front in just minutes and crest a hill to find everything in confusion. The field is a bloody mess, and the American line is collapsing, the right and left wings peeling away and leaving the center company vulnerable. 

Lafayette’s blood starts to sing. His resolve to fight, he is pleased to find, is steady. A dozen yards before them a cannonball hits the ground, sending up a spray of soil and gravel. The air is not yet cleared before there is a volley from British muskets. The air buzzes with the high pitched whine of bullets passing by, followed by faint thud of their impact into the ground, into bodies. He looks to Laurens to make sure he is not hit, and finds him still sitting tall in his saddle, horse restless but not panicked. 

Drawing his sword, Lafayette shouts, “Take the left. Bring them back down to halfway down the hill and make them hold there. We must shore up the center column.” 

Laurens only answer is to spur his horse toward the fleeing men of the left wing. He rides toward the battle like a man who sees very little difference in the merits of living or dying. Lafayette watches after him for as long a moment he can spare before he takes the shortest path toward to the right wing. 

“Hold, men,” he orders. They do not listen. He drives his horse between the fleeing soldiers, and making it spin in place. “Hold!” To avoid being trampled the men must slow, hesitate, but still they try to run. In desperation he dismounts and grabs the collar of the closest soldier to him.

He lets his magic slip free to make the man’s limbs heavy, to calm his mind. He stops and lets Lafayette look him in the face at last. “Hold, fellow. Help me save your brothers.”

Precious seconds tick by while he forces out the rabbit-like fear in the man’s eyes, but eventually the soldier shakes his head as if to clear it. “What can I do?” he asks.

“Grab your men, and help them to stand with you. Show them your courage! We’ll fall back, but only together!” 

He lets go of the man’s coat and the soldier does as he is told, grabbing his friends and pleading with them. They listen, and Lafayette lets the small group become the rallying point as he begins to pull men together in a line. Even so they threaten to scatter at the next volley of British fire. 

He cannot help but remember bitterly Hamilton’s earlier assertion. This is not an army meant to stand its ground. But he must make them. Thinking quickly, Lafayette pushes out a circle of quiet around them, makes the bullets and the cannon sound far off. It works, and he thanks God for it. They return fire.

As he is shouting them through the course of reloading their rifles, he cries out at a sudden, searing pain in his calf. He buckles briefly, and with the loss of focus the noise of the battle comes back, roaring back into their ears like flood waters. He straightens and, finding he can still stand, gives no further thought to the pain as he berates the men into taking aim. “At their hearts, at their very hearts!”

Only after they have finished with the discharge does he hear someone calling for him. “Marquis!”

He turns to see Laurens riding to him, heedless of enemy fire. He has in his hands the reins of Lafayette’s horse. “Stirling calls for a retreat. We’re falling back to Chester!”

Lafayette nods, and tries to run up to meet him to take his horse. He makes it no more than a few steps before his leg gives, knee refusing to hold firm against a terrible, shooting pain. 

Laurens looks at him in alarm as he draws near. “Your boot, Marquis! You’re bleeding.”

“It is fine,” he says, though it’s through a gasp. “It must be small. I did not even notice.” He tries to mount his horse, but his wounded leg will not hold him long enough to get a boot into the stirrup. 

Laurens dismounts and with his help Lafayette gracelessly makes into the saddle. The wound, thankfully, troubles him less now that he is not standing.

Laurens gets back upon his own horse, and maneuvers it between Lafayette and his men. “Get yourself off the field! I can take care of this.”

“I will not,” he says, pushing past him. “Not until I have them all safe. Tell Lord Stirling that we follow him.” 

Laurens looks as though he has not intention of doing as he is told, but Lafayette draws his sword again, and calls, “To me, brave sirs. To me!”

As the men surge toward him, Laurens can do nothing but spur his horse away toward Stirling. Lafayette’s heart leaps in his throat as the ground just behind Laurens’ horse sends up puffs of dirts as English marksmen thankfully miss their shots. 

The retreat takes time and more than its fair share of his energy, but Lafayette holds his men together, getting them to the road along with the rest of the division. There he is reunited with Laurens and gets an angry but affectionate earful. 

“You were ordered. Explicitly! No unnecessary danger! If you did not think of yourself, you should have thought of me. How would have I answered to the General if you’d been killed?”

Lafayette favors him with a rueful smile, “I imagine the same sort of case I would have had to plead with both the General and Hamilton if your luck had not held every time you rode through enemy fire.” 

It works. Laurens does not press any further in chiding him. It’s a blessing, considering that as they ride Lafayette can’t deny the pain from his wound grows immensely. An unrelenting nausea spreads from his stomach up to the back of the throat, and he wishes they could stop for water but knows they cannot. At first he stays straight-backed in his saddle, determined to bear the wound with the very best composure. Soon though, he cannot help but sag and shift uncomfortably.

It’s both wonderful and awful when Laurens finds a house that will take them. He is grateful to no longer to be on horseback, but his leg protests mightily at being asked to carry his weight again. 

“Steady now,” Laurens says, taking Lafayette’s arm and bringing over his head to hang on to his neck. With Laurens’ help he makes it into the home, and to his amusement is laid out onto a dining room table. At first there is nothing to do but remove the boot, wrap the wound, which now bleeds sluggishly, in strips of linen, and await the surgeon. 

 

In France he would of course be treated with a combination of both medicine and magic. If there is a doctor so skilled here, Lafayette has no way of knowing him, and doubts that he could be found nearby. 

“Laurens.” He sits up, supporting himself upon one arm braced against the surface of the dining table. “Unless there are plans to make a feast of me, I would ask you two favors.” 

Laurens takes his free hand kindly, giving it an encouraging squeeze. “Come now, Marquis, there’s no need to worry. The surgeon will be here soon.” 

Lafayette smiles, “I know, I should be glad of him. But Laurens, please, there is a valise among my things. Brown leather, two silver locks. My friend Gimat will help you find it. If you could please bring it to me, I have a very great need of it.” 

It’s not an easy task to take up in the midst of a nighttime retreat, but Laurens nods. “It’ll be in the baggage train by now, but if it’ll comfort you, of course.” 

“Thank you,” Lafayette says, relieved. 

“And your other favor?” Laurens prompts. “What do you need?” 

Lafayette cannot help but feel embarrassed of his answer, “General Washington, please. If you could tell him, I-- that I ask for him, I’d be very grateful.” He’s aware he sounds like a child asking for a parent. In his stomach there’s a kernel of fear, too, that the General will not come and leave people to believe there is some mismatched affection between them. 

Whatever Laurens thinks he only nods his agreement. “I’ll leave now.”

It’s the surgeon who arrives first, and he seems as happy as one can be while inspecting a wound. “The ball went straight through and struck neither bone nor nerve, Monsieur.” There are, however, pieces of leather and stocking which must be removed. The surgeon’s efforts to remove them are excruciating, and by the time he has finished Lafayette has sweat through his shirts in the effort to keep a dignified silence. 

Soon the valise arrives in the hands of Gimat, and Lafayette begs him to take a letter by dictation assuring Adrienne that he will be fine, grasping at any opportunity -- no matter how small -- to portray his wound as a perfectly favorable event. The night wears on, and he begins to drift in and out of sleep. Finally, Lafayette is roused by the sound of heavy boots. He opens his eyes in time to see Washington duck his head under the doorframe as he enters the room. 

“Sir,” he says, smiling. Now able to let go of the last of his worries, he sighs in exhausted relief. 

The surgeon stands up from his post in the corner, “Your Excellency, I’m very pleased to report the very best news regarding the patient.” 

Washington glances at him, and says a brief thanks.

“Sir,” Lafayette says again as he tries to sit up. It feels ridiculous to lie prone when he is well enough and will be far better soon. The surgeon immediately comes to his side and tries to lay him back down. Lafayette looks at the General, into eyes that are dark and impenetrable in the light of the fire crackling in the hearth. 

Washington recognizes his plea. “If you would give me a moment with the Marquis, please.” 

The surgeon seems quite reluctant to agree, “But he must rest, sir. He’s fought it all night and here sleep finally finds him. We ought not to--”

Lafayette protests that he is fine, but it’s Washington the surgeon heeds. “I assure you I agree, good doctor, but the Marquis has become like a son to me, and I wish to speak to him in confidence. It will only be a moment.”

His choice of words feel like pin pricks against Lafayette’s skin, driving in deepest above his heart. He wishes he believed the words to be as sincere as they were expedient. Thankfully the surgeon relents, and leaves with a promise to be close at hand if need. He closes the door behind him. 

Stubbornly Lafayette sits up, though the effort makes him lightheaded. “Thank you for coming, sir, I. I am sorry for not realizing Howe’s deception.” He shakes his head, still angry himself for his stupidity. “There are charms I could have cast to trace him, but I didn’t think.”

“There’s no apology necessary,” Washington’s voice sounds both calm and very tired. If the defeat stings, he does not show it. “We could have anticipated him just as as easily if we’d been better prepared, better informed. That fault lies with me alone.” 

“Sir--” Lafayette starts, but Washington speaks over him.

“I did not come here to conduct a review of your performance or mine,” he says, voice firm but still mixed with compassion. “Though I have heard you acquitted yourself very well. I’m here to ask after your health and spirits.”

Lafayette sighs. “I think the wound is not something to be very afraid of, but with your help we will be able to make sure.” 

Washington nods, “What do you need of me?” 

He nods towards the valise on the floor beside the table. “If you would, please.” The General comes closer and leans down to pick it up. Lafayette presses his thumb to both locks and they pop open at his touch. 

“I need ah, the calendula and lotus. The um,” he tries to clear his head. It’s a basic remedy: Adrienne had made him promise to carry the ingredients with him always. He plucks the names from his memory, “Sarriette, dried baie de sureau, and-” he struggles with the last one. It’s an English word he always found ridiculous and thus hard to remember. “The featherfew.” 

Washington locates each item, though a few times he does not recognize the French on the label and must ask Lafayette to confirm it is right. Once all the herbs are assembled, he looks to Lafayette for further instruction.

“There is a mortar and pestle, sir. A pinch of everything, except two pinches of the sarriette. Then grind it, but you must--” he takes a few breaths, looking for the words in English. He knows the term in French but it will not mean anything to the General.

“My boy,” Washington says gently when he is silent too long. 

Lafayette closes his eyes briefly, then finds his backbone again and opens them. “Your magic, sir. You must prepare the herbs while you feel it, you have to ah, project your intentions as with the illusion, but not to me. To the herbs.”

“My intentions?” he asks. 

“The desire to heal,” Lafayette clarifies. “When the herbs are very fine, mix them with the oil of rhodium, again with the same intention.” 

“I will do ask you ask, of course, but I might do better with clearer instructions regarding intention.” Washington presses his lips tightly together, then says, “I’d take it very hard if I were to fail you.” 

Lafayette smiles at him, “The herbs will do enough on their own, sir. And just the touch of your magic will make them stronger. I am not worried.”

Washington seems less than confident when he agrees, but he says nothing more of his concerns. He removes his cloak and jacket, and by the time he starts rolling up his shirt sleeves his resolve seems firmer. Lafayette, watching him as he readies, sees further proof the the General is flesh and blood, not an animated statue of marble or bronze. Now on open display are thick forearms dusted with hair, a few of them grey. The muscles under the skin flex and move, a vein trailing up toward the elbow is well defined even in the dim light. Flesh and blood, Lafayette thinks dizzily as he closes his eyes.

He drifts, but in the corners of his consciousness he hears the scrape of the mortar and pestle, and feels the swell of Washington’s magic in the room. The clean, bright feel of it is amazing after hours of gunpowder, blood, and sweat. 

He is finally roused by a nervous question about how much oil to use. 

“Oh,” Lafayette says, lifting his head up from where it has fallen, chin resting upon his chest. “Only enough to make a paste, sir. With-” he hisses as he shifts on the table. “With intention as I said.” 

Washington does as asked, and Lafayette bids him to uncover the wound. He shows no distaste for blood as he unwinds the linen wrapped around Lafayette’s calf, but his face is grave. 

“I will need you to apply the paste to the wound, sir,” Lafayette says, panting now because the wound is throbbing as if angry at being exposed again. “I would do it myself, but--”

“It is all right, Marquis.” Washington says. He steps away briefly to rinse his hands with a pitcher and basin that had been brought in for the doctor. When he returns he takes up the mortar and scrapes up a portion of the paste upon two fingers. 

Though he has every reason to anticipate it, the careful touch of the General’s fingertips against his calf comes as a surprise. Lafayette flinches involuntarily, the skin around the wound feels so hot and thin--it’s as if the weight of air upon it is too much, let alone even a brush of fingers. 

“Forgive me,” Washington says softly. 

But Lafayette shakes his head, “Please, sir.” When Washington resumes his ministrations it is with feather-light touch. In time the magic in the poultice begins to seep into the skin, the torn flesh. It’s almost unbearably hot at first, a purifying burn that becomes suddenly, blessedly cool and soothing. 

As Washington shifts to cover the wound on the other side of his calf, he asks, “Will just one application suffice?” 

“This will be a great help, I can tell. But save it for me, and I will reapply if I need it.” If he thinks of Washington, the look upon his face as he worked, the feel of his will it can reawaken the magic in medicine. “Pardon, sir, I think that I must lay down again.” 

Washington favors him with a very slight smile as he sets aside the mortar, “Rest, Marquis. Please.” 

He finds he is helpless not follow the order, and he cannot keep his eyes open as his leg is carefully rewrapped. He is hardly awake at all when the General readies to leave and his last memory of the night, the sound of a door closing, is faint and indistinct. He has the good luck not to dream when sleep finally takes him.

 

He heals splendidly, faster than he would have had the wound received only the attention of an ordinary surgeon. This would be a very good thing, except that Washington, having asked for frequent reports upon Lafayette’s progress, is able to learn that he is trying to soon to get back in the field. Washington chides him in a letter to not to rush his return. The implicit order for Lafayette to act lame for a little longer means that not only the rest of September but all of October passes in boredom while he is kept far from the main body of the army. 

Though he waits to hear word of some change in the opinions of Congress or General Washington upon the matter of his command based upon his behavior at Brandywine, he receives only more equivocation. His rare pieces of good news are that Congress has yielded their position on Baron de Kalb, and the General has made room in family for Laurens to join his staff officially. 

It is not until late November that he is favored with another chance to prove himself. Out upon reconnaissance with General Greene he leads a very successful skirmish against a battalion of Hessians. He writes a careful letter to Washington about the conduct of his men and of his role in the battle. He sends it the day before he leaves to join Washington and the main army again, hoping that it will arrive before him and make for as warm a welcome as he could hope for. 

 

Warm ends up being too faint a word, at least for the effect their reunion has upon Lafayette. He is met upon the road by a set of four riders and escorted to camp amid a decent amount of good cheer. He’s delighted to be taken straight to the General’s headquarters. 

Laurens awaits him at the doorstep of the little house, grinning. Quite moved to see his friend again, Lafayette greets him à la française, which the American accepts without hesitation. 

“Our dear invalid,” Laurens says, as they turn to enter headquarters. “Returned to us at last.”

“I would have been here sooner if only I could.”

“You would have missed your chance for laurels, then. There’s been little action since Germantown.”

“So I have been told,” he says. “Is the General here?” 

“He awaits your pleasure.” Laurens says gesturing up a set of stairs. 

Lafayette nods and begins to climb them, making a show of using his cane as he supposes he might if he still bore more than just a little pain from his leg.

Upstairs he finds two doors, one opened and another closed. Through the open door he spies the General, alone in a small bedroom, reading a letter. “I do not wish to bother you, Your Excellency,” he says at the doorway. “But I was told you were waiting.” 

Washington looks up from his letter, and in a moment his expression shifts from one of deep concentration to one of pleasure. “Marquis,” he says standing. 

Though Lafayette finds himself hoping Washington will come forward to embrace him, he bows instead. Lafayette returns it politely. 

“Come in, sit, and tell me of your recent action in Gloucester. I’ve been looking forward to hearing it from you in greater detail.” 

“It was trifling,” Lafayette says, though with hardly any conviction. He takes a seat and tells the General everything. At first he is conscientious enough to put forth a proper modesty, but then his excitement gets away from him. Thankfully, if Washington finds him hyperbolic or boasting there’s no sign of it upon his face as he listens. Instead he is alternately amused and interested as Lafayette talks of how his magic helped him at both in Gloucester and Brandywine. 

“And your wound?” the General eventually asks. “It does not bother you?”

“It is all but perfectly healed, sir,” Lafayette is happy to tell him. “This,” he says, fiddling with his cane, “I am afraid is only for show.” 

“Truly?” 

Lafayette nods with a smile. 

“May I see? I will admit I was troubled by the fear that I may not have followed your instructions and did you no amount of good.” 

Lafayette nods again, more than willing to put to rest any idea that he must spend any more time recuperating. As he sits back into his chair, he realizes the only way to grant the General his wish will be to get into a somewhat awkward position. Stiff from the ride, he tries to raise his leg up too quickly and without nearly enough grace. He ends up grunting in pain. 

“Wait,” Washington says. He stands and offers his hand to Lafayette. He cannot help but notice it is the first time he has ever seen Washington volunteer to be touched. “I would not have you risk aggravating it for my curiosity. If you will sit upon the bed, I will help you with the boot.” 

Lafayette had earlier removed his gloves, so when he grasps Washington’s hand he feels the same spark jump between their skin that he felt the night they first met. Washington helps him to stand and then immediately steps away. As Lafayette watches him take up the chair and place it beside the bed in the corner he recalls the memory of placing Washington’s hands along the candle, of asking him to do his first intentional magic. Perhaps that’s why Lafayette only stares in distracted confusion when Washington gestures to the bed. 

“Please,” Washington says to encourage him to sit. “However you’ll be comfortable.”

Lafayette does as he is asked and as he sits upon the bed he means to beg pardon that he is fresh from the road. Instead he finds himself making every effort not to blush as Washington helps him to raise his leg with one hand placed behind the bend of his knee. His other hand then grasps the heel of Lafayette’s boot and works it free. When the General turns to set the boot aside, Lafayette quickly leans forward to undo his own stocking, rolling it down to the ankle and checking that his skin does not seem too damp or dirty after traveling all day. 

Washington sits up again, and Lafayette forces himself not to react as his calf and ankle are taken into careful hands. He has since they met been so careful to give the General the space that the man seems to both require and expect and he tells himself that this why he feels so startled by Washington's easy contact. 

“Are you uncomfortable?” Washington asks as he gently manipulates Lafayette’s leg until the heel of his foot rests upon Washington’s knee. 

Lafayette shakes his head and forces himself to act more at ease. They are gentlemen and soldiers, brothers in arms. He should be touched by his commander’s concern, but not surprised. Satisfied by his answer, Washington examines Lafayette’s calf. He does not wear bandages anymore, having grown tired of the way they do not stay where they should. The wound, now no bigger than a sterling silver coin, closed long ago anyway. 

“I had worried you weren’t being truthful about your progress, but this is wonderful,” Washington gently tilts the muscle in his hands toward the light. “You’d never know it was so grave. But still it bothers you?” 

“There’s very little pain now,” Lafayette insists. “And in truth, I think what pain I do have in my leg comes from having to pretend it is still infirm. I don’t think I shall bother much longer.” 

Washington nods absently as he inspects the matching wound on the other side of Lafayette’s calf. Getting more and more used to the General’s attention, Lafayette relaxes enough to make a joke. “When I am older I will have to complain and use a walking stick sometimes. That way people will ask me about it, and I may brag about when I shed blood for my adopted country.” 

Washington glances up at him, a rare unreserved smile lifting the corners his lips. He must decide that he is finished with his inspection, because he takes Lafayette’s stocking in his fingers and begins slide it up his calf. 

Lafayette’s mouth falls open and he exhales a breath that is thankfully completely silent. He is suddenly and completely undone, and he cannot say why. A second ago he’d been able to call Washington’s attention benign, even paternal. And as for his jittery response to it, Lafayette assumed it was the product of too much respect, too much sentimental affection for a great man. Now, however, some veil has been lifted and no matter how he tries he cannot see things again in so innocent a light. Not the nakedness of his calf, not Washington's fingers sliding up over his skin, and certainly not fact that he is leaning back upon Washington’s bed with the ball of his foot upon the General’s thigh.

He wants, he realizes, for Washington to finish with the stocking and then push him back against the bed and remove it again along with everything else. He wants that so badly that it knocks the breath out of him. He shocks himself by thinking he would do anything to have that actually happen, but he has not even one idea about how to go about prompting it. 

All he can think of to do is hold himself very still while Washington, his general, his commander, replaces the garter just beneath his knee. 

A moment later Washington looks up at him, and whatever he sees -- Lafayette’s expression perhaps, or maybe just the tableau of a youth upon his bed looking less than perfectly chaste -- clearly stuns him. 

Lafayette waits, terrified, for shock to turn to disgust, but it never does. Instead Washington’s hand remains cupped loosely around his ankle while his eyes sweep up to Lafayette’s face and then down again to his calf. Instead of discomfort or revulsion Lafayette sees plainly a mirror of his own desire. Or perhaps it would be better to say they have a matching set, Washington's wish to press into Lafayette’s space fitting neatly into Lafayette’s desire for him to do so. 

Still nothing happens. For an endless moment, nothing happens.

“Sir,” he says. It’s only a whisper, a plea barely less tentative than saying nothing at all, but its effect is immediate. In an instant the desire Lafayette saw so clearly is shuttered away, replaced by that same steadfast control he has only rarely seen the General without. 

He looks down at Lafayette’s ankle in his hand and gently removes it from where it rests upon his knee. Then he stands and leaves Lafayette to put on his own boot back on. He does so in silence while the General goes to stand beside his desk. The playful, familiar quality of the moment is lost again under stiff formality.

Lafayette pushes himself off of the bed and wonders if he should just go. He thinks perhaps he’d better, and walks over where his cane is leaning against the chair to take it with him.

“I am very glad you’re well,” Washington suddenly says. Lafayette pauses in turning toward the door to look at him, “Especially in light of the fact that I’ve recommended to Congress you be given a command which befits your rank. I expect their answer very soon.” 

“Oh,” Lafayette breathes. “Sir, I--” but he stops himself. His first impulse was to thank the General profusely, but this is not a gift. It is a profound responsibility. He straightens his posture, and tries to affect all the sobriety and solemnity such a trust is due. “Whatever talents I have, I will put them all towards this task. For your glory as well as my own.”

“I think you give me too much honor, Marquis, but know that I accept it gratefully.” Though his manner is still rigid, Lafayette has reason to hope that little if anything has been altered between them. His feelings are his own, and he does not think he can change them, but his actions he will keep honorable and the demonstrations of his affection firmly filial. 

Pulling open the door he’s startled to find Hamilton on the other side, leaning against the wall across the hallway holding a packet of letters. Hamilton raises his eyebrows at him, “Major General.” It seems he knows about Washington’s recommendation. 

Lafayette shuts the door behind him before responding. “Colonel.” 

“What were you talking to the General about?” 

It’s a blunt enough question that would have caught Lafayette off-guard at the best of times, let alone now. “Matters which I meant for his ears only, which is why I said them only to him.” 

Hamilton smiles at his retort, unbothered by the sharpness of it, “Very well. No doubt he’ll be making me write a letter about those matters in a day or two.” 

Lafayette notices for the first time a kind of playfulness in Hamilton’s assertive style of repartee. His verbal thrust is less of an attack than an invitation for Lafayette to parry. He tries it. “Then I suppose you’ll learn everything when you send the letter.”

Hamilton laughs, not at all offended. “Oh, I doubt it will be everything.” 

“No?” 

Hamilton shrugs, “There is something quite unique between you both. I haven’t yet been able to put my finger on it, but I expect in time I might figure it out.” 

It could very well be an innocent comment, no different that Laurens pointing out that the General has allowed Lafayette liberties he’s denied to other French officers. Another time, he may have even been flattered, but now -- with Lafayette still faintly flushed with the revelation of his desire -- it feels as if Hamilton implies something untoward. He panics, thinking that in his ignorance of his feelings he has cast a shadow upon the General’s reputation. 

“I do not know what you mean. The General is a mentor to me, I--” Lafayette’s throat tries to close and he forces himself to say, “I see him as a father and I want to be a worthy son.” What a farce.

For the first time since Lafayette met him Hamilton seems contrite for something he’s said. “No, sir. Please, I meant no disrespect. I only.” His words seem to fail him, and it’s clear that frustrates him immensely. “As I said, I have not yet come to understand it.” 

Lafayette finds himself in such confusion that he wishes only to get away from this conversation and forget it. “Well, when you do, you are welcome to come and find me. Good day, Colonel.” 

As Lafayette leaves Hamilton he smells, of all things, the sea. It seems impossible, so many miles from any coast, but it is unmistakable: salt mixed with both the verdant, lively scent of strange flowers and an undercurrent of decay. A fitting sort of perfume, as the sea is the source and home of life and death. And its presence here, Lafayette suddenly comprehends, must be nothing short of magical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Finally! Some sexual tension! And finally Hamilton shows up, and just as you would expect he immediately endeavors to make himself a bigger part of the story. Up next: Valley Forge and the Conway Cabal, both of which I have learned in my research gives me even more feelings than Brandywine. So yeah. That might be a two parter. 
> 
> Thank you to every one for reading and being so lovely!
> 
> Also I'm on [tumblr](http://fickleobsessions.tumblr.com) and I'm always up for talking hamslash.


	4. Valley Forge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter in America is a lot harder than Lafayette expects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Necessary warning for any fic set in Valley Forge:** there is a brief, non-graphic reference to a slaughtered animal carcass in this story. 
> 
> **Also an unfortunately common warning for fic set in America's past:** A character in this part is enslaved.

“And you are absolutely sure about Hamilton?” Washington asks calmly him the next morning. His doubt at Lafayette’s announcement, if there truly is any, seems to be in the interest in thoroughness only. 

“Absolutely,” Lafayette responds. It feels a bit gauche, telling the General before he even speaks to Hamilton, but Washington is his commanding officer. He’d thought it prudent to start at the top. “I cannot say why I missed it for so long, except that I was always near Hamilton while in your presence or some other excitement.” 

Washington ponders that a while and then sighs. “I suppose this comes as a surprise, though if I’d had to choose a likely co-conspirator in this business it would be Hamilton.” 

Lafayette nods faintly and looks down at the paper before them. He has sometimes wondered about the unusual place Hamilton inhabits in Washington’s family. Hamilton speaks more freely and more sharply to the General than any of the other aides. He obeys the letter and the law of Washington’s orders only when he finds it truly necessary. And Washington, well aware of Hamilton’s cheek and gall, is usually content to exhibit only a quickly passing annoyance and say nothing about it. The are times when fondness seems lacking between them, but there is always familiarity.

“At least you’ll be able to trade an old man for a more trainable pupil,” Washington suddenly says. His chair creaks as he shifts to lean against the back of it. 

Lafayette looks up in surprise to find the General has a concerning air of finality. “What do you mean, sir? I will teach you both. I must.” 

“Hamilton is very bright,” Washington says, as if he’s trying to sell Lafayette a difficult horse. “I think you’ll soon find that you can accomplish things with him in far less time than what you might have with me.” 

“But, sir,” he splutters, appalled. “Even if that were the case, it hardly matters. To leave power like yours untapped, unused...” Lafayette huffs and shakes his head. “It would be very foolish, I think.” 

Though anxiety tries to tempt him, he does not let himself think that this attempt to end their lessons is related to the moment they shared yesterday. Not when the entire morning the General has acted as if nothing remarkable had happened. Even now Washington regards him with a mild expression only, allowing Lafayette to feel that he can press his case even harder. 

“I know that Brandywine was a disappointment, but I must believe it was only that there was so little time to prepare. We have the winter now to ready ourselves. Three pairs of hands will make for lighter work,” he says as he gestures to the paper before him. They had been attempting for the first time to create Washington’s improved invisible ink. “Not any combination of two.”

Finally, the General sighs again. “Very well, Marquis.” 

Lafayette had not noticed the creeping tension pulling at his shoulders before they suddenly relax at Washington’s agreement. He allows himself a small, relieved smile. “Shall we tell Hamilton now, sir?” 

“You may tell him as soon as you’re able.” 

Lafayette feels his brow furrow, “I don’t understand, sir. Surely, Hamilton will want to hear such news from his commanding officer?”

Washington seems to find such a notion amusing, tipping his head to one side with a soft hum that isn’t quite a laugh. “If you wish him to think favorably of the news, then I can assure you it will need to come from anyone but me.”

 

Lafayette isn’t able to get Hamilton alone for the rest of the day. Or at least he is unable to do so without the risk of arousing the curiosity of Laurens or the other aides. Eventually, impatient for dinner, Lafayette decides that he might have better luck in the morning, and he’s right. The next morning he finds Hamilton alone in the house he shares with some of the other aides. He has stayed behind to read alone instead of joining the others for breakfast. 

Lafayette finds him propped up in a corner beneath a window with a book on his lap. Hamilton looks up from it when he hears Lafayette enter. “Marquis. Did you need something?” 

“A moment of your time only.” 

“Have as many you like,” Hamilton says, setting his reading aside. “Do you want to sit?” He gestures nearby to a straight backed, and frankly uncomfortable-looking chair. 

Lafayette takes it so that Hamilton will not have to crane his neck quite so high in order to meet his eye. “I think I was rather too abrupt when we spoke outside the General’s room the other day. There were some things that I did not realize.”

Hamilton blinks up at him slowly. The weak, winter morning light glints in his eyes. 

Lafayette clears his throat. He had not known enough to feel nervous when he spoke to Washington about magic, blundering into it on the assumption Washington already knew. This time he thinks it likely that, like Washington, Hamilton must not know either. It makes him unsure of how to proceed.

“You see,” he starts at last. “I came to your country with some silly assumptions about what I would find here. And even though they were disproven to me almost immediately, I still did not fully understand.” 

“Assumptions?” Hamilton asks, dragging one of his fingernails along his stockinged knee. 

“Yes. For example, I assumed that there would be no one here that had” -- magic seems far too incendiary a word to use so soon and he struggles to think of another term -- “unseen talents.”

Hamilton cocks his head to one side, curious. “Talents,” he says, repeating Lafayette again.

“Yes,” Lafayette nods. “Talents of an... extraordinary nature.” 

Hamilton is as tightly contained as Lafayette has ever seen him, movements slight enough to be almost imperceptible, his expression guarded. “Such as?” 

“Such as might be called magic by some.” There is really no other way to say it. 

For a moment Hamilton is very silent and very still, then he smiles tightly up at Lafayette. “My dear Marquis, I had no idea you were superstitious.” 

“I’m not. In fact I have ready proof if you need it.” 

Hamilton’s smile vanishes in an instant. “What could you possibly mean, proof?” 

If given another moment Lafayette would have repeated the charm he’d performed for the General and lit all the candles in the room, then put them out again. He needed only a second to count them.

Hamilton, however, is much too quick. “I don’t know what evidence you think you have, Marquis,” he hisses. “But I can assure you it'll be no use to you here.” 

Lafayette is so taken aback that he cannot think of how to respond. Hamilton is already standing, all the false reserve burning away like paper in a flame. 

“You’ve found out about my birthplace, then.” He nods sharply at Lafayette as if daring him to deny it. “And you’ve drawn your conclusions. That’s fine. He already knows, and he would not stoop to believe such a stupid rumor because of it. Even if it came from you.”

He hardly needs to ask who Hamilton speaks of, the implication is clear. Though unfortunately that makes Lafayette is no less confused. “But the General already knows. We have already discussed it.” 

This instantly douses Hamilton’s anger and leaves him looking stricken. “Then he will not even dismiss me himself?” 

Lafayette cannot for the life of him figure out how he has already managed to put his foot in it when he’s barely even started the conversation. “Dismiss you? Hamilton, what are you--” 

Before he can even finish his question, Hamilton is already trying to leave the room. 

“Wait,” Lafayette jumps up from his chair to stop him. “Hamilton, you are not dismissed! We are happy to have you in our midst.” 

Hamilton scoffs and pulls his arm free from Lafayette’s grasp. “Then I will resign. I’m sorry to deprive you both of your amusements, but I won’t be treated as anything less than a gentleman.” 

“Mon dieu,” Lafayette says more to himself than anything. “Hamilton, you will jump to every wrong conclusion before you finally get to the right one, I think. Be still. Give me a moment.”

Hamilton obliges him but not without a defiant jut of his chin. Unwilling to place any more trust in words, Lafayette lights all the candles in the room, six of them in total. Their flames come to life with a testy sort of puff. 

Hamilton’s lips, tightly pressed together in anger at first, slowly part. Lafayette lets them burn for as long as Hamilton’s mouth hangs open and then, when Hamilton finally swallows reflexively around some conclusion, he extinguishes them. The smell of smoke and magic linger in the air. 

“Did you do that?” Hamilton asks him. Lafayette nods, and he looks a bit chastened. “I did not realize.”

“Nor did I,” he says, relieved that Hamilton is no longer outraged. “I thought you did not know anything about magic, or I would have been clearer.” 

“No, it’s my fault,” Hamilton says. “I thought-- well.” He seems reluctant to clarify. 

“You thought it was something to be ashamed of.” That much was obvious, though Lafayette can think of no reason why. He asks Hamilton to explain. 

Hamilton seems reluctant to answer, and when he speaks he does not meet Lafayette’s eye, though he looks at Hamilton the entire time. “The only reason I knew about it was because I heard of it on the islands.” 

“You were born there?” 

Hamilton takes a deep breath, sighs and nods. “Yes. In the West Indies. The slaves there, some of them had a power. Or so people said. It made their owners afraid of them. I thought it was just superstition until...” Hamilton shakes his head and Lafayette feels reasonably certain that nothing he can say will induce Hamilton finish that sentence. It does not matter; he can guess a little. 

“No one in your family shared your gift?” 

Hamilton’s laugh is low and bitter. “Who’s to say? Perhaps. Perhaps not.” 

A picture, though still hazy, begins to take shape. A young boy, without much of a family, learning first that magic is a trait among slaves, learning then that he himself has magic. Lafayette has heard enough parlor talk to hazard a guess at Hamilton’s long-held fears. Ah, but he really did put his foot in it. He’d meant to welcome Hamilton to a brotherhood and ended up making him fear he was being cast out in disgrace.

“Perhaps it is some uniquely American trait --” he wonders aloud “-- that inspires magic to choose its sons and daughters here so completely at random. I think it must be. The General knows his family well enough, but still he could not say if there was anyone else with a talent for it.” 

Hamilton looks up from the floor finally, “The General?”

Lafayette nods. “He hadn’t a clue of his power before I told him. He was was taken quite by surprise.” 

Actually Hamilton seems just as surprised. He struggles visibly to make sense of the new information before him. Finally he shakes his head, “I think perhaps we had best start over.” 

Lafayette smiles, “Of course.” 

Hamilton is full of questions, some as broad as “Why does magic exist?” and some as specific as whether or not a piece of magic discussed in the Iliad might actually be a true accounting. Lafayette answers as many as questions as he is able, and begs ignorance on those he can’t. 

He does not fail to notice a flash of something in Hamilton’s eyes when he learns that magic is so often found in royal and noble blood. It contains too many things to name, a shock of surprise, a spark of recognition, even a glint of something covetous. Yet perhaps out of everything Lafayette tells him Hamilton is most pleased to learn that magic has military applications. Lafayette can almost see Hamilton’s clever mind leaping upon the thought that here is another argument in favor of being given a command. Lafayette supposes he is not wrong. 

“What books are there on this subject?” Hamilton asks. 

His excitement is so clear that Lafayette is sorry to tell him the answer. “None that I could provide you. My family has a few in our library, but it would be very dangerous, and quite illegal, to transport them here.”

“Illegal?” Hamilton asks. “Why?” 

“To keep the secrets in them safe.” 

Hamilton’s eyes narrow, “Safe from whom? From those without magic or anyone of an unsavory sort?” 

Lafayette has never been cross-examined by a lawyer but he imagines it must be something like being questioned by a mind as shrewd as Hamilton’s. 

“As far as I was always told it was to keep magic a secret among only those who have it,” he tells Hamilton. “Though I admit I now have reasons to doubt that this covenant is being strictly followed by some families. Even so I still I think it is a sound one. Think of the fear you spoke of in the islands. And there were burnings here in America, too. I’ve wondered if they were much too successful, if that’s not the reason why magic is so scattered and unknown here.” 

Hamilton frowns. “But if here in this army we have now three men with this gift, why not more? Perhaps they only need to be found.” 

“It is possible,” Lafayette allows. He’d certainly been wrong about the singular nature of Washington’s magic. “There are ways that such things could be determined.” 

Hamilton nods his head in enthusiastic agreement, “So we must go to Laurens.” 

“Laurens?” Hamilton looks at him as if he is daft, rather than answer. Lafayette puzzles at Hamilton’s line of thought for only a moment before it becomes quite obvious. “Ah, I see.” 

Hamilton smiles at him, pleased to have him catch up. Lafayette sighs regretfully. “There is no need, I am afraid. I know already.” 

Inevitably Hamilton’s enthusiasm fades into concern. 

“Laurens is remarkable for a great many good and honest reasons,” Lafayette says trying to be gentle. Still Hamilton shakes his head, denying the words he has yet to say. “But none of them involve magic.” 

“But are you really so sure? Couldn’t you be wrong?” 

“I am not,” Lafayette insists. Hamilton begins to pace the room with a sullen look. “I will teach you how to sense it, of course. We can make absolutely sure, but--” 

Hamilton stops to look at him. “But what?” 

“But you must understand this means he cannot know.”

Hamilton scoffs. “Ridiculous. He’d never tell a soul, if we asked him. You know he wouldn’t.” 

“That isn’t how it works, Hamilton. You must promise me. Please. If the enemy ever found out, it would undo all our advantages.”

Hamilton looks offended. “Are you really accusing him of being untrustworthy?”

“Of course not,” Lafayette says. “You must think of things in new terms. There are methods of magic where Laurens would not have to give up a secret willingly.” He watches the meaning strike home. “In fact he could be quite unwilling, but still the secret could be found out. But only if it was in his mind to begin with.” 

Hamilton’s shoulders drop down in defeat, but he does not speak. 

“Please, Hamilton. Promise me,” Lafayette says again. 

Hamilton sighs, “Fine.” He levels his large, bright eyes squarely at Lafayette and says, “I swear.” 

 

Hamilton makes sure to hold Lafayette to his own promise. For his first lesson, Hamilton does not wish to learn anything about illusions or charms. He wants to understand how magic can be sensed and found. In the presence of the General reading his morning correspondence and making a list of responses for Hamilton to draft himself or dole out to the other aides, Lafayette explains all he knows. Hamilton explores Lafayette’s magic first, describing it not as a smell or a sound, but a color. Lafayette’s magic is, to Hamilton at least, aubergine. 

“Truly!” he says in the face of Lafayette’s skepticism. “I see it just around the edges of my sight. It does feel like something, too, but that I can hardly describe.”

Shaking his head, Lafayette looks to Washington. “Please, sir. A demonstration to see if we cannot get to the bottom of this.” 

The General looks up from his letter, and Lafayette is near enough to Hamilton that he can sense the other man take a breath and hold it. Washington considers them both for a moment, then takes a cup, drained much earlier of its coffee, from its saucer. Lafayette guesses what charm the General will perform just a moment before he’s proven correct. 

Washington opens his hand and the little white porcelain cup remains, suspended in the air as if placed upon an unseen shelf. Washington’s control is as unwavering as Lafayette has come to expect. He is confident enough in the sturdiness of the hold that Lafayette would pour another round of coffee in it without even a bit hesitation. Satisfied he’s done as asked, Washington plucks the cup out of the air and replaces it on the desk.

Though Lafayette strains to see the periphery of his vision there’s no color, just the smell of a clean, fresh humidity buzzing with an electricity that Lafayette can almost taste. He and Washington both look at Hamilton for comment. 

Hamilton is regarding the General as if seeing him for the first time. It is not, as Lafayette might have first suspected, a look of awe. Instead Lafayette recognizes the look of a man challenged. That Washington can accomplish what Hamilton does not yet know how to do is not something that will be allowed to continue for long. 

The competitive urge must pass because Hamilton finally exhales and says, confidently, “Verdigris.” 

In a short amount of time Hamilton can sense magic when it is dormant, too. And shortly after that he learns to both project and hide his power. Lafayette tries, in vain, to tease the General into attempting the same, but Washington only glances at him and keeps reading. An hour later Hamilton is begging him for still further instruction, but Lafayette’s head is starting to ache. He strains to think of something simple to try. 

“Hamilton,” Washington says, and it’s as if the air in the room centers again around the General when he speaks. Lafayette cannot guess yet if it is magic or charisma alone. “Though I know how much you would like to devote yourself wholly to anything that is not correspondence, there are in fact several letters here in need of attention.” 

Hamilton sighs and not at all subtly. With a nod of farewell to Lafayette, he crosses the room. “Yes, sir.” 

 

So it goes for the entire month of December. At every possible opportunity, Lafayette teaches both Washington and Hamilton magic. And whereas Hamilton is an eager pupil, Washington seems as if he would be entirely content to merely observe if Lafayette would only let him.

Teaching the both of them is rather more a challenge than Lafayette might have assumed upon the outset. Washington’s control remains smooth as a polished stone, but it’s sometimes as difficult to dislodge as a monolith. Hamilton’s power, on the other hand, is like an unbroken horse. For so long, he’d handled his magic by simply ignoring it, by refusing it. As such, it’s calmest when he is not thinking of it at all. The mere hint, however, of any attempt to funnel or direct it, can cause it to fluctuate in strength as wildly as a bucking colt. It makes for as many sudden triumphs as it does hours of frustration. 

Still Lafayette cannot deny that there is remarkable progress. The new invisible ink is perfected, and with any luck it will be safely into the hands of agents in New York and Philadelphia before the new year. The General, still smarting from the lack of sound intelligence at Brandywine, asks for magic that will provide the true contours of any section of land. They have so far yielded promising maps thus far of small areas, and by the start of spring they should be able to do an maps covering a decent size. Lafayette and Hamilton have also been given the a handful of muskets in need of repair to see if magic can fix them and fix them soundly. It’s all very encouraging, but nonetheless as the days pass Lafayette senses a growing agitation from both Hamilton and Washington.

At first he thinks it must be annoyance of endless work and colder weather. Every day there are orders to give, requests to review, and concerns to manage. Hamilton and Laurens both complain of letters coming from a shifting cast of officers, generals, governors, congressional delegates, citizens who feel they have been wronged by two armies. He is not privy to the contents of most of these letters. Though Laurens and Hamilton will sometimes speak amongst themselves about contents in front of him, they do so obliquely. Lafayette is too much of a gentleman to pry and -- he can admit to himself -- too sensitive about the fact that he is not trusted to know more. 

He imagines at least some of the letters are on the subject of there being entire too little food to feed the army. The soldiers want constantly for meat and bread. Their despair is palpable, and the gloomy winter weather compounds the feeling that the army is standing with its back to a cliff. Every day that the men go without more blankets, decent food, or even a little whiskey to help them forget their cares seems to nudge them further and further backward. No one can say how long this can continue before they all finally topple over the edge. 

Such circumstances makes for quite a somber Christmas. 

In all his life Lafayette has never celebrated a holiday with so humble a meal as the one that graces the General’s table at Valley Forge. The house is completely unadorned, and every guest a soldier, though with ranks ranging from one of Washington’s personal guards to Major General Greene. They sit down to a table set with just two dishes, one of mutton, the other of veal, both dressed with cabbage and potatoes. The only other things passed around the guests are bread and cold water. 

A cynic might accuse the meal of being a bit of theatre, a show of solidarity with the suffering of the soldiers that is more shrewd than sincere. Lafayette knows of other generals and officers who, willing to pay in hard money and not continental currency, have no trouble obtaining finer things to grace their table. But from the moment they all sit down to when the dishes are cleared, Lafayette can detect no fault or overstatement in the sincerity of the night. The cheer among all present is both fierce and fragile and it has quite an effect upon Lafayette. He feels in his heart a true sense of pride that he has cast his lot to the fate of these men, and of one man in particular.

The General, perhaps knowing he tends to have a sobering effect upon a room, makes no speeches or other gestures. He listens more than he talks while the conversation swings from thoughtful rumination to strident discourse to cheerful stories and back again, and seems content in doing so. Washington smiles when they raise a toast to his honor, glasses containing nothing stronger than water and emotion, but he raises his hand to stop another, telling the men instead to remember their wives instead. 

It’s a pleasing assignment for the Americans: their wives will join them shortly now that it’s clear that Howe has no designs on any energetic winter campaigns. Seated beside Lafayette is Baron de Kalb, recently come to Valley Forge after finally receiving the commission he’d been promised. He and Lafayette are the only foreigners among them, and they both opt to be spectators only while the wives are toasted. Lafayette sips when appropriate, thinking all the time of Adrienne alone at home. No doubt she’s surrounded by family, but alone just the same, without him there as she would want him. He feels keenly his absence from her, and it gives the end of the night a melancholy feeling. 

He does not mean to stay long after dinner, but in the parlor Billy Lee, Washington’s body servant, steps forward and murmurs that the General would like a word. So Lafayette lingers, though he tries very hard not to make it appear intentional, speaking for a time with the Baron de Kalb.

He is delighted to find the Baron has had a change of heart. 

“When he leads men do follow,” the Baron says, softly enough that there can be no suspicion that he only says it in order to be overheard. “To rally his army to another offensive so soon after a defeat, to keep them here at this camp with little promise of food or help. To do so all without overuse of the lash and the noose. One cannot help but be impressed.” 

“It is remarkable,” Lafayette agrees. It loosens up a bit of anxiety he has had in his chest since he met with the French officers. They can, he now believes, perhaps find a true passion for the cause, and for the man that leads the charge. Very soon he will need to tell the Baron of the General’s other rare talent, but he finds he wishes to keep the secret a little longer. 

“I only hope the matter of supplies can be addressed,” the Baron says. “Loyalty does not clothe, does not feed.” 

Lafayette nods gravely, and wishes him a good night. He considers this warning as he waits beside the fire while the Baron takes his leave of their host. When de Kalb leaves the only men left in the room are Washington, Billy Lee, and himself. 

Washington glances at Billy Lee. “William, if you would--”

“The madeira, sir?” he asks. Washington nods, and a knowing smile breaks across the handsome slave’s face.

Considering the lack of libations at the dinner, Lafayette cannot help but cock an eyebrow at the General as Billy Lee leaves the parlor. Washington sighs regretfully. “There’s but one bottle in the whole house and I would have been embarrassed not to have enough to share with all of the guests. But I trust you,” he says, with a small smile, “to keep a secret.” 

Billy Lee reappears with a bottle and glasses in hand. Washington takes the glasses from him and, seeing there are only two, tells him, “Come now, William, it’s Christmas. Fetch a third. We’ll wait.” 

Billy Lee does so and quickly. Three glasses are poured, and then Washington lifts his higher. Lafayette and Billy each follow suit, but the General says nothing, leaving each man to think their own blessings upon the evening before they drink. After such a simple meal the taste of the madeira is almost shockingly rich. The effect of the alcohol is just as pronounced, Lafayette feels his cheeks heating up almost as soon as he swallows. 

Billy Lee pours a second glass for both of them and steps back. Washington tells him, with a certain sort of stern leniency, to take the rest to share in the kitchen. Billy nods and does not wait around for him to change his mind or ask for another top up. 

Alone now with the General, Lafayette sips from his glass and waits patiently for him to say whatever it was that made him request the audience. 

Washington sighs, and looks down at his glass. “I can’t imagine you’ve been very happy here.”

Lafayette frowns. It’s hardly what he expected to hear. “Sir?”

“You came for high adventure and found a long, difficult slog. You came looking for an army to fight with and--” 

“I found one,” Lafayette finishes for him. Washington looks up, meets Lafayette’s eye. “I am happy in your service, sir. I do not think I have been shy in saying so.” 

The corners of Washington’s lips lift but only for a moment. “I do not question your morale, Marquis. You’ve been nothing but determined and enthusiastic. I only wanted to say, well.” He shifts his weight from one knee to another and it occurs to Lafayette that the General is uncomfortable. Lafayette begins to fear bad news.

Washington sighs, “I meant to say it would not come as a shock to me if you were to find yourself disappointed, and with some very serious concerns. Nor would I be offended if you were.” 

Lafayette shakes his head. “I’m not disappointed, sir. Not at all.” When he thinks of how he would have remained in ignorance of all that he has learned if he had not disobeyed and come to America, it astounds him. 

Yet Washington does not look any more at ease, staring now at the fire with a deeply furrowed brow. Lafayette takes a step towards him but stops himself from taking another. They remain a proper distance apart, but at least Washington is looking at him again. “Whatever expression you saw tonight that may have seemed to be doubt, please know it was just the pain of being separated from my family. But I bear that willingly as a consequence of my choice.” 

“Is this your first time away from them?” It’s both a kind question, and a change of subject. Only the answer is not so simple.

“Yes,” he has never before had an ocean between himself and his family. “But at the same time, no. My mother was often away when I was little. And my extended family was almost always at Versailles while I was with my grandmother in Auvergne. When my mother and my grandmother passed, I left my home for the new world of the court.” He drinks from his glass again. “You must understand, dear General, I have been missing people I love all my life. I’m well practiced at it by now.”

Clearly moved, Washington regards him in silence for just a moment. Then he says, “And yet you don't ever seem to fall victim to ill humor. Black moods.”

Lafayette shrugs, helpless to account for it. “There is always some reason to find excitement, even joy. I look for them, but sometimes they will find me.” He raises his glass. “Tonight, for example, a little unexpected wine to go with good company.”

Washington smiles, softly and mostly to himself, as if remembering some private joke. 

“What?” Lafayette asks, curious.

“I was merely reminded me of someone,” Washington answers. Lafayette is left to infer the character of this person from the fondness in his voice. The General finishes his madeira and sets the glass down upon a table. “I am grateful for your good spirits, Marquis. Especially now. Only please believe me when I say if you should ever have doubts, I hope you'll bring them to me.”

Perhaps owing to the late hour Lafayette does not puzzle much over this request, but promises, lightly, “Of course.” He drinks the last of his own glass, “But if I do not bring any to you, sir, you must believe it is because I have no doubts.”

The General smiles again. “Very well, Marquis.”

There is nothing then to do but bid each other goodnight. The evening has been meaningful enough, but before he leaves Lafayette cannot help but give the General a gift. Some small thing to acknowledge the generosity both of the wine and his concern about Lafayette’s happiness. 

All he can offer is an illusion, one that Washington alone will see, but he makes it as fair a one as he can think of. Pausing at the doorway he press his magic out into the room until mistletoe and evergreen boughs twist about the mantle. A wreath appears upon the window, and the dim light of the real candles in the room is supplemented by candles that are just illusion. Lafayette also remembers Washington’s description of his magic, a winter day brightened with citrus and spices, so he creates a bowl of pomanders. The oranges studded with cloves exist in image only, but the scent of Lafayette’s magic will linger for Washington for as long as he can project it. 

It must be either cheek or cowardice, but Lafayette doesn’t glance back to see the look on Washington’s face. He leaves it to blind hope that the magic has the effect intended. Lafayette holds it as long as he can, over a greater distance than he usually can manage, until he must quite reluctantly let it melt away. 

 

Not two mornings later Gimat knocks upon his bedroom door and passes over a letter. “This has come for you, sir.” 

Lafayette thanks him and breaks the seal. It is a letter of greeting from Thomas Conway, a former French officer who volunteered with the Americans at the start of the war. Lafayette remembers reading his name in some of the papers early in the war. Conway has lately been promoted to Inspector General, and has come to Valley Forge to render an assessment. He further writes that he will call upon Lafayette tomorrow morning to pay his respects to a fellow French officer. It seems a perfectly respectable, and Lafayette hardly gives it a thought other than to be pleased that there may soon be some helpful changes. 

Conway calls as he promised the next morning. He is not so tall as Lafayette, and older. His face looks as if it’s been perpetually scrubbed pink and shiny. 

Bowing neatly, Conway says in swift, easy French, “Marquis, thank you for the honor of your time.” 

“No, no, sir. I should thank you,” Lafayette says reflexively. After months of practice he is getting better at not allowing his rank to get the better of him. “I know there must be a great many things to do on your visit here. I would have understood if you could not make time to call upon someone so new to the army.” 

Conway smiles at his modesty, but immediately sets it aside. “Ah, but your short time with us is hardly a problem. You are an officer of French forces, after all. In fact, I believe that you know very well what an army should look like. I imagine you agree there are deficiencies in need of correcting.” 

Such a pronouncements makes Lafayette feel simultaneous pride and anxiety. How badly he wishes to be treated as an asset. How terribly does he hope he does not accidentally reveal any naivety. “The deficiencies I see are primarily a lack of supplies, sir,” he says carefully.

“Precisely,” Conway taps the air smartly with his finger. “And why? This country is not so very poor in food, clothing, carts, draft animals. Why then are such things impossible to find here in Valley Forge?” 

Lafayette senses that Conway feels he already has the answer. He shifts uncomfortably, and chooses silence. 

It’s the right choice, Conway is happy to supply his own answer. “As with all things in the army,” he says, sounding confident, “it is discipline. Discipline is vital to an army. A lack of it spells ruin, and a surplus paves the way for success. We are in dire need of reforms, don’t you agree?”

“I think we should all be glad to see any easing in the plight of the soldiers.” 

Conway nods very gravely. “This is true. And yet, I am sure you have seen that there are those who think first of what how their position will better themselves rather than how they may use their position to better the army.” 

Again Lafayette finds himself unsettled by Conway’s phrasing. He finds himself now having to agree with him or insist that he has remained ignorant. Trying to pick his words carefully, Lafayette almost feels as if he is back at court. “I do not think such men comprise the bulk of the officers.” 

“Exactly, sir. Exactly. A few replacements, and I think you will see the effect will cascade throughout the chain of command.” Lafayette opens his mouth to ask about just whom Conway is thinking of, but Conway continues too quickly. “I hope to get started right away. In fact, I have set aside time this morning to learn the layout of the camp. I hope to get a little glimpse how the men are living and working. If you would be so very kind as to join me I think your insight would truly be invaluable.” 

Later, Lafayette will wish that he had hesitated. He does not, however, hesitate at all. It seems at the face of it a harmless offer, and one that could even be beneficial to the army if he argues well in their favor. And if Lafayette is to take a command it is only right for him to have a clear view of the state of the army. He agrees to go with Conway quite easily. 

They ride through the camp, the two of them along with Conway’s staff, picking their way through muddy lanes between rows cabins and tents where men not on guard or foraging duty sit inside sullen around fires. They glance up at Conway and Lafayette upon their horses but apparently feel no cause to stand at attention or salute. Lafayette does not really blame them though it he dislikes the discomfort of wondering how much they resent seeing him mounted, cloaked, and gloved while they must hide their hands between their arms and their sides to keep them warm. 

“Is it any wonder they run?” Conway asks, as if to himself. It seems an uncharitable thing to say, and that thought must show on Lafayette’s face. Conway looks sheepish, “Believe me it gives me no pleasure to say it, but I’ve seen it all too often. You saw as much yourself at Brandywine, I’m sure.” 

Lafayette turned from Conway to consider this. They pass a soldier hauling wood who does not look up as he passes. The line had not held, it was true. If Lafayette had not been there, they may well have run into the woods and not bothered to return. 

And yet. 

“I think you forget the occasions when they showed true bravery,” Lafayette says, turning to look back at Conway. “They were brave enough at Trenton and Princeton, no?” All of Paris had thrilled at the courage it took to cross a frozen river, to attack despite such an obstacle behind them preventing an easy retreat. It was splendid. “And I saw proof of that bravery in Gloucester as well.” 

“Yes,” Conway allows. “Good leadership does wonders, does it not?”

Lafayette cannot think of how to respond to that, and they press on for a while in silence until they round a corner and find the carcass of a horse, hastily and untidily slaughtered. Either the smell or the sight of it spooks Conway’s horse, cause it to whinny and lift its forelegs off the ground in unruly hops. Lafayette keeps control of his own mount, but must guide it away, turn it from the other’s unrest. He murmurs softly at it and pats its neck gently with his hand to soothe it. 

“Disgraceful,” Conway all but curses to the sky once he’s settled his horse. He appears beside Lafayette, cheeks red from the cold and a bit of bad temper. “Left out to rot like that. So close to the living quarters. Blatant disregard of orders.” 

Conway shakes his head, “It’s because they favor the English system of war. That ridiculous family structure, it breeds sycophants. I know that General Washington can hardly help it. He was a servant of King George’s army, it’s how he was trained. But the proof of its failings are here to be seen by anyone who takes the time to look. You can’t expect a system to provide order if the whole system is _disordered._ ” 

Lafayette feels distinctly uncomfortable. His natural impulse is to defend Washington against the implication that he is culpable for the misery they have reviewed this morning. But do so in when that misery is on display before them seems impossible. He can only tighten his hands upon the reins. 

“We can, however, change his mind, Marquis. I will be making a report shortly to Congress’s Board of War. It’s a council of good men, military men all! Things can be improved. All it will take is proper recommendations. We simply must be willing to try, don’t you agree?” 

Relieved to be given something positive to agree with, Lafayette nods. “Of course, sir. Of course. We will not leave our fellows to suffer.”

They ride on. 

 

Conway does not stay long, barely a week in fact, but Lafayette expects this is because the concerns he needs to report to the Continental Congress are fairly apparent. He does not bother to give much thought to the man once he is gone. Sharing with Baron de Kalb that they are allies with the General in more ways than one provides a ready distraction. In no time he and the Baron has thought of a dozen magical schemes that could be effected with combined forces of three wills.

Since he can hardly write down such things in a proposal he goes to headquarters. He hopes to speak to Hamilton and Washington both, but even just Hamilton will do. A guard allows him in and takes him to a downstairs parlor where Laurens is writing alone at a desk beside the window. 

Laurens is wearing a blue scarf to ward off the chill that must no doubt be wafting over from the glass. It’s fluffed up almost high enough to cover his ears. Lafayette cannot help but smile at it, but when Laurens looks up he does not appear in a mood to be teased about it. 

“I’m afraid His Excellency is busy today, Marquis,” he says bluntly and then he returns to his papers.

Lafayette turns his head to glance up at the staircase behind him, “Is Hamilton with him?” 

“He is indeed,” Laurens says without looking up. 

Lafayette takes a breath and remembers that Laurens is a man of changeable moods, sometimes warm and forthright, sometimes somber and retiring. It is not fair to assume that the coolness of his manner is deliberate. 

“Do you think Hamilton will be kept there very long? I had hoped to speak to both of them, but even just a moment with Hamilton will do.”

Laurens seems to realize that Lafayette will not be taking his leave any time soon and sets down his quill. “I cannot say for sure. There’s been much to discuss in the wake of Inspector General Conway’s visit. Though I expect that will not surprise you.”

The pointed quality of Laurens’ words do, in fact, seem entirely intentional. Lafayette feels the back of his neck flush hot in embarrassment. “Why should I be surprised that the General has much work to do? Hasn’t he always?” 

“More than any one man can do,” Laurens replies. “And yet not so much that he can’t be called upon to make a review of his own army.” 

Lafayette is taken aback, but keeps a mastery of himself. “You’re accusing me of quite a lot over very little. Conway paid me a visit out of respect to our common service in the French forces. He asked me to ride with him as he explored the camp on what seemed to be a sudden impulse.” Lafayette shakes his head, baffled as to why he must even make an excuse for it. “He seemed very passionate about the need to improve things.” 

Laurens all but leaps upon his comment. “Oh, I’m quite sure he did. And did you agree with him?”

It seems such a strange thing to ask. He has talked with both Hamilton and Laurens about the sorry lot of the soldiers here and heard their own laments about the lack of supplies. “Don’t you? Don’t you believe that something must be done?” 

“Absolutely,” Laurens says, fiercely. “But _not_ if it comes at too great a cost to the General.” 

Lafayette is lost. The whole world may as well be tipped upside down if Laurens is going to accuse him of somehow wanting even one thing that would harm Washington. “That is the last thing I want. I only want to ease his burdens.” 

Laurens scoffs, hardly moved at all. 

Lafayette cannot help but take insult. “You doubt that?” he asks Laurens. “Truly? Because I have questions? Because I want to help? He does not need to be coddled. He told me himself. He said that if I had doubts they would not offend him.” Lafayette remembers now that Washington asked him to come to him with those doubts. “Actually, I think that is enough. I will speak to the General myself on this.”

“Please do,” Laurens say as he picks up his quill and returns to his letter. “But not today,” he continues, no longer even looking at Lafayette. “He is busy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://fickleobsessions.tumblr.com). I'm never too good for asks. Please shout at me.
> 
> As before, as always thank you so much to [Ossapher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ossapher/pseuds/ossapher), partly for reading through this and mostly for being a source of lovely encouragement and mutual shouting about Lafayette.


	5. Conway Cabal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette makes things right shortly before they all go wrong again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I need to start by thanking [Ossapher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ossapher/pseuds/ossapher) for being a wonderful beta. Sorry this took a little while to get up. Getting George Washington to talk about his feelings is _not_ easy.

Circumstances conspire together to hold Lafayette at bay for another two days. Lafayette’s own responsibilities to his rank combine and conflict with Washington’s many obligations and leave him no appropriate time to lay siege to the General’s headquarters. On the third day, however, Lafayette resolves not to be denied. 

He meets a ready resistance when he arrives: both Laurens and Colonel Tilghman, another aide de camp, offer him nothing more than a cool greeting and more of the same excuses. But Lafayette has had more practice being disagreeable than the Americans might guess. He plants his feet squarely in the entry of headquarters and starts to talk. Lafayette begins by describing the assurances Washington had given him that he is due at least a small portion of Washington’s time. When this does not work, he moves on to the sort of questions he must be able to answer when letters come from Versailles. 

Upon hearing this not-so-very gentle reminder of his place in the French court, he catches Tilghman glancing nervously at Laurens. Lafayette is more than willing to attempt to exploit this small crack in their defenses, and is rallying to do just that when, Hamilton’s voice comes from high above. 

“Is that the Marquis? Good afternoon, sir.” Lafayette looks up and finds him standing at the top of the staircase like cavalry perched atop a hill ready to provide reinforcements. He appears relaxed, one hand braced against the railing, the other holding a sheaf of papers to his hip. “Laurens, Tilghman, you should have told me about our guest.” 

Lafayette looks again at the two men in front of him. Laurens rolls his eyes, and makes quite sure that Hamilton sees him do it. “Since you are aware now, I have work I must return to.” He bows shallowly at Lafayette, “Hamilton will help you now, Marquis.” 

Tilghman joins in the retreat, taking his leave with nothing more than a long sigh and a quick bow. The two aides return to their desks, and leave Lafayette alone in the entry with Hamilton above him on the stairwell. Lafayette lifts up his chin to again meet Hamilton’s distant gaze. 

“I’ve come to speak to His Excellency,” he says plainly. “Though I suppose you are here to tell me the General is busy.” 

Hamilton considers him, then glances down the hall towards the General’s room. “His Excellency is indeed very busy,” he says finally. He looks back at Lafayette in time to smile at Lafayette’s unhappy huff. “But that need not stop you from seeing him today.” 

It is all the invitation Lafayette needs; he starts up the steps immediately. However, Hamilton’s placement at the head of the stairs means that he will remain a barrier until he deigns to move. Hamilton does not move, and Lafayette must pause uncomfortably two steps away from the top. 

In answer to Lafayette’s expectant look, Hamilton says, “You must forgive Laurens. He’s very protective of the General.” He continues talking before Lafayette can do anything more than bristle at the implication that he is something from which Washington must be protected. “I’ve reminded him that we must, of course, remain good friends with those who offer us help.”

“A very sensible notion,” Lafayette says a bit tightly. 

He waits for Hamilton to move, but still Hamilton does not. Instead he says, quietly, “Before I go, I did wish to ask you a question about a little bit of magic.” 

Lafayette looks reflexively around to confirm they are alone. They are-- Laurens and Tilghman are downstairs, tucked well away in the parlor-turned-office. “What is it?” 

“Only a small thing. Since our last lesson I have been wondering whether there would be a way to tether two clocks to each other.” Lafayette tips his head to one side, curious, and Hamilton clarifies, “Say one had a pocketwatch, and a secret key of what each number on the face of it meant. Twelve could mean ‘caution’ for example, and one ‘return to camp’ and so on. The hand of one clock would need to control the other so that when wound they moved as one. Could such a thing be done?”

“It is possible,” Lafayette answers, not yet at ease. His assistance with magic is, of course, still on offer, but he would much prefer provide it while knowing that he is trusted. “You’d need to make the hands of both watches think they were one and the same.”

Hamilton frowns, “And how would you do that?” 

“Melt them down, obviously.” Hamilton apparently does not find this so obvious, and Lafayette can almost see the wheels turning in effort to figure it out on his own. Lafayette explains, “Two watch hands go into a single crucible, become one. With the right magic applied as they are they are poured into separate molds, the metal never realizes it’s been separated. The watch hands continue to believe they are one and the same. So when one moves, the other moves.”

“I suppose that is obvious,” Hamilton says. He shakes his head at himself, “So much simpler than what I was thinking.”

Lafayette smiles, “Magic never benefits from complication.” He finds he is a little comforted, to be talking so easily with Hamilton. He reminds himself that Hamilton and Washington alone know the extent of what Lafayette is able to contribute to their cause, lets himself hope that means Hamilton has better sense than some of his friends. He takes another step up the stairs and Hamilton shifts promptly over to allow him to pass. 

Lafayette has very nearly gotten by him when Hamilton speaks again. “Thank you for your help with that little riddle, Marquis. The General and I spent an hour on it yesterday. I see we very nearly had it.” He looks perfectly untroubled when Lafayette looks back at him. “With the benefit of your instruction, I think it will not be so very long until we’re finally self-sufficient. And for that, I must say, we’re truly grateful.”

Lafayette already has a habit of thinking about Hamilton’s wit and words in terms of swords and sharp edges. How apt it is, then, that Hamilton’s comment feels like a stab in his side. No matter how much he wishes that he did not flinch he does, rolling his shoulders back as if wishing to recoil from the hit, exhaling softly. Hamilton knows he’s hit the mark, looks Lafayette up and down to assess the damage. Lafayette can think of nothing to say, and nothing to do but turn away again. 

Behind him Hamilton lingers for a moment, gaze heavy on the back of Lafayette’s neck. He makes sure his back is straight and his step is sure as he continues down the hall. Then Hamilton’s boots strike the stairs as he descends them, leaving Lafayette alone the hall. 

Coming to stand before Washington’s door, he tells himself firmly that he will set everything right, gives it like an order and takes it like a challenge he cannot back down from. He allows himself one more anxious moment in private and then he knocks. 

He is called to enter. Inside Washington is at his desk, several papers spread out before him. He looks up at the sound of the door closing, and says, evenly, “Marquis.”

In so many ways the scene recalls Lafayette’s first meeting with Washington. The spare room, Washington seated and looking at him with patience that is so clearly not infinite. Since then he’d come to know a living, breathing figure; a man of rare smiles and hidden humor with a deep well of emotion he rarely tapped, though it was never in danger of running dry. But now the General is again a still and stony figure surrounded by a vibrant power, a statue of a demigod regarding Lafayette with a polite disinterest. 

“Sir,” he says, and regrets that he sounds so tentative. Lafayette squares his shoulders, takes a deeper breath before speaking. “I came here several days ago to speak with you. I wonder if you were told?” 

It’s rather a desperate hope, considering Washington’s frosty demeanor, but Lafayette has always been an optimist. He hopes things are not so bad as his fear would have him believe; perhaps Washington was willing all this time to see him.

“It was mentioned you asked to see me,” the General says, putting a quick end to that line of thought. “However, circumstances prevented me from being able to honor the request. I am sorry if you were inconvenienced, Marquis.”

“Ah,” Lafayette says as if the mild rebuke had been a physical blow, a hard tap to his sternum. He sets aside his desire to be soft, to act as if they are simply friends. “Certainly it is understandable. Though I cannot help but note that Your Excellency became quite busy following Inspector General Conway’s visit.” He pauses, gives Washington a frank look. “Actually, that was made quite clear to me by your staff.”

Washington responds to this opening move with unblinking calm, “I cannot even guess what my aides may have implied, but still I will apologize for their zealotry.” 

Lafayette notices the apology does not extend any further than its careful boundaries. He tries a different tactic. “Perhaps it is I who ought to apologize,” he says. “Since I arrived I have tried to be careful not to overstate my experience, so I think it best to be honest now and confess my ignorance. I did not know accepting an invitation to tour the camp with another officer would be considered so grave a breach of protocol.” 

For a moment, Washington continues to hold steady, not changing his expression or his posture. Then he gives way, looks away and turns his shoulders slightly as if he wished to sidestep Lafayette’s words altogether. “There was no breach of protocol. Nor do I wish you to think there should be or will be be any consequences for accepting such an invitation.” 

Though ground is yielded, it’s the wrong portion. Lafayette would rather be wrong than to be right and still left on the opposite side of a conflict with Washington. His next assault is a little more desperate, less controlled. “Except, of course, the consequence of our altered friendship.” 

It’s a bald-faced statement, showing plainly Lafayette’s objective, but it does at least regain Washington’s attention. The General turns back to him, insists, “There has been no alteration. My feelings are the same.” 

One of the few courtly things Lafayette has mastered is the art of smiling when something hurts him. He lifts the corners of his lips, bares his teeth slightly. If what the General said is true, then how poorly did Lafayette judge the tenor of their friendship? 

He moves on, unwilling to take another blow where his defenses were already weakened. “I cannot help but think of your comment at Christmas.” 

Washington is silent for the length of two carefully measured breaths, perhaps thinking how different that moment was from this one. Then he asks, challenges, “Yes?” 

Lafayette clears his throat, “You said then that if I had concerns I could come to you. That this would be taken as a show of confidence, and not an affront.” 

“I did,” the General agrees. “I take it some have occurred to you since then?” 

Lafayette does not know how else to respond but with a nod. 

“Very well, Marquis. Please share your concerns.” He appears braced, steady as a rock against the ocean.

Lafayette swallows and thinks that he ought to have been better prepared for this moment. He’s a loss for where to start. “I have long been aware that the army is not well supplied. However, I also held out hope there would be some easing of the soldiers’ plight. Each day it seems more and more apparent that something must be changed. I did not think this so rare an opinion.”

Though he looks for some confirmation, Washington offers no reaction whatsoever. Unnerved, Lafayette continues, “Yet I find that after endeavoring to learn more about this problem, after agreeing to render assistance when it was requested, I am no longer fully trusted. I find this particularly painful to bear when I have done everything that has been asked of me.” After Hamilton’s comment in the hall, Lafayette cannot help but add, “And I would do much more, if only you would take a keener interest in magic.”

Washington’s jaw clenches, and Lafayette finds he dare not continue. He has made his case, he decides; it is up to Washington to refute it.

“Your opinion on the plight of the soldiers here is not rare,” Washington says, his voice is low but scrapes as if his throat is tight. “It’s a position quite ardently shared by myself, and if I’ve given any indication to the contrary I regret it powerfully. Yet what solutions have been offered to me have so far failed, while what solutions I have begged Congress to implement are not yet approved. Every day that passes in these circumstances is unhappier than the one before it.” 

His agitation increases with every word so that he finally begins to sound quite terse. When Washington says, “And as for magic,” Lafayette cannot help his flinch. “I will apologize, if I must, for not having a keener interest in the subject in which you excel.”

Lafayette flushes, in surprise at the General’s tone, in humiliation that he is being called vain. He offers up a weak protest. “It is not in self-interest that I ask. Magic can be of a great help to us.”

“Can it?” Washington asks, both words fairly gusting with incredulity. “How? You say your chief concern is the the lack of provisions, yet we’ve been working on illusions, on hanging tea cups in the air. Has some previously unconsidered solution been found now that you have been consulted by General Conway? Pray, Marquis, what exactly can magic do to help?” 

Lafayette’s lips part but he has no answer. 

“Can it save a man from dying of dysentery? Or the pox?” Washington wonders aloud. “Can it save a thousand men in five different hospitals? Can it conjure food from thin air? Can it multiply pounds sterling in quantities great enough to buy a million pounds of beef a month?” 

Washington pauses, waits for him to offer up an answer, but Lafayette only shuts his mouth, swallowing past a jagged lump in his throat. It’s taken as all the answer needed. 

“No doubt I ask the wrong person. If I am seeking miracles, I know precisely where to go. And to whom. Why else would a man condescend to me so often, why else would he express such unbridled confidence in his own abilities if he was not able to accomplish feats such as these?” 

Lafayette can sense the General’s magic pressing in around them. Washington continues as if he does not notice, stands up and steps away from the desk, declaring, “Yes, of course. It’s obvious, isn’t it? If we are to save this army we must ask _Conway_ for--” 

The end of Washington’s sentence is abruptly cut off when a lantern hanging from a rafter above suddenly bursts. The candles inside it light and pop at the very same time the glass containing them shatters, sending down a brief shower of embers and glass. No small amount of debris lands upon Lafayette’s shoulders which are hunched around his ears in surprise. 

Washington, startled into silence, watches as Lafayette brushes himself off, patting at his shoulders for any possible stray sparks. Lafayette would assume he was stunned if Washington did not look so exhausted. A moment later Washington sighs heavily and says, “damn,” just beneath his breath. 

Billy Lee’s voice comes the hallway almost immediately. “General?” 

“Yes,” Washington says, turning his back to the door. “Come in, William.” 

Lee enters and if he is able to make any sense of the tableau he finds -- the mess of the lantern shattered upon the ground, the General’s rigid posture, Lafayette’s hand passing through his hair and discretely picking out glass -- he is careful not to let it show on his face. He cleans up the crumbled wax and glass shards with a heavy cloth rag and careful fingers. 

Washington says nothing in explanation, only leans upon his spread fingertips against the desk before him. From time to time he leans on them hard enough that the skin beneath his fingernails flashes pale. Lafayette thinks of a few falsehoods that he could pair with an apology for being clumsy, but every time he settles on something he falls too deeply into his thoughts to speak. Unintentional shows of magic are hardly unheard of, and certainly not among those first learning their abilities, but Lafayette has never had even a hint that Washington’s control was not steady. He wonders a bit ruefully if this might be blamed on the experimentation with Hamilton that has been going on in his absence.

Finished, Billy Lee picks up the corners of the rag, making a neat bundle of jagged debris and goes to leave. He pauses at the door, looks back at Washington. “Is there anything else I can do, sir?” 

Washington turns away from his desk at last and clears his throat carefully. “No, William. Thank you.” 

Lee nods, but then looks to Lafayette as if wanting to be sure. Lafayette gives him a tight lipped smile and shakes his head. Lee does not press, just steps out and shuts the door as softly as he can. The air he leaves behind is still, so still it hardly seems to allow for any sound, still enough that Lafayette finds it hard to breathe. Perhaps that’s why it takes so long for either of them to say something. 

It’s Washington that confronts the silence, saying finally, “I apologize.” And whereas the other apologies he’d given today were hard and small, this one is softly spoken and spreads like a blanket over the whole of everything. 

Lafayette looks at Washington and finds that he seems human again. In fact, no longer held rigid by the stony facade Washington looks so weary that instinctively Lafayette attempts to comfort him. “There is no need.” He tries to sound breezy, tries to stir the air around them and make it breathable again. “In time my jacket will probably see worse than a few sparks and a little shattered glass.” 

Washington sighs, guilt scarcely assuaged. “I was not speaking of the jacket, although I should apologize for that as well.” 

Lafayette thinks suddenly of how he came in with the intention of setting things right. The shattered lantern hanging above their heads speaks to how well that mission has gone. He can hardly bear the idea that the outcome should be that they are both miserable. “If you would only say what I did, sir.” Some things only come by way of pleading.

Washington looks genuinely pained, inhales and shakes his head slightly. “Nothing, Marquis. You did nothing worthy of censure. In the end this does not truly concern you.” 

Lafayette cannot say he feels absolved in the slightest. If he has done no wrong, it’s clear that Conway has, and whatever his actions were, they have opened a fissure which is in danger of widening. “Then tell me, please, what Conway has done, so that it may do no more harm to our friendship.” 

Washington presses his lips together as if it is the only way to keep the answer stifled.

“Please, sir.” Knowing the pain his plea caused Washington before, Lafayette says it gently. 

Still, the words land almost visibly upon Washington’s shoulders. Lafayette watches them sag ever so slightly under them. It looks at first that Washington is ready to bear this as well, no matter that Lafayette is all but begging him to lay at least this portion of his cares down. But then the General sighs again, and it’s a sigh of defeat. Washington turns back to his desk and from his jacket breast pocket pulls a key. Bending down, he unlocks a drawer and takes from it two letters. 

For a moment he only holds them, considering something as he taps his fingers twice upon the paper. Finally, he crosses the room and, saying nothing, passes over one of the letters to Lafayette. Lafayette takes it with a questioning look that goes unanswered. 

Unfolding the paper carefully, he begins to read. It is a letter from Conway to Washington, dated only a few days ago. The further Lafayette reads the letter more he astonished by it. The tone of the missive alone would be cause for offense -- Conway is by turns lecturing, snide, and condescending -- but then he turns sarcastic. 

With infinite impertinence, Conway brings up Frederick the Great of Prussia and places Washington as one of his peers. Far from flattering, he imagines that all of Frederick’s opinions (as described by Conway) must obviously be Washington’s own, for if Washington is great as Frederick was great they must be of a mind. This is, unbelievably, followed by a complaint that Conway’s receptions with Washington had left him with little doubt that he was not “agreeable to Your Excellency” and that he expected little support in fulfilling his duties as Inspector General. 

Finished, Lafayette looks up, stunned. Before he can say anything, Washington carefully takes Conway’s letter from his hands and presses the second paper into them.

This letter is much shorter, and contains an apparent quotation from a letter from Conway to General Gates: “Heaven has been determined to save your country, or a weak general and bad counselors would have ruined it.” Lafayette reads the quotation twice to make sure he’s understood it and by the time he’s finished he knows his cheeks are flushed, feels the heat of his outrage upon his face, the back of his neck. 

What Washington must have thought or feared, thinking that Lafayette might have heard such talk when he met with Conway! Did he imagine Lafayette laughing at the comparison of a first-time General and his Continental Army to Frederick the Great and his royal forces? Did he suspect that Lafayette would see the proof that only heaven had preserved the army in the misery and need of the soldiers in winter? 

Distraught, Lafayette looks up to find Washington regarding him carefully, and knows at once that yes, he had.

“You must not think that I would have ever--” Lafayette feels his fingers start to clench, creasing the letter in his hands. He stops and tries to calm himself. “Sir, I swear that I never heard him speak so. I would have never stood for it. He spoke only vaguely about his plans, pleaded a passion for aiding you. He expressed a desire to fix things but he never said how. He-- he wanted my support and when I tried to ask for details, he clearly did not answer the whole of it.”

Washington puts his hand out, first to calm Lafayette and then to ask for the letter. He says, as Lafayette hands it over, “I believe you, Marquis.” 

Hearing that Lafayette does feel his shoulders sag in relief. And yet, “I am horrified that you ever had a doubt, sir.” 

Washington takes his reproach without raising any defenses. “You have every right to be, but...” There is a pause, and it lengthens until Lafayette is surprised to realize that the General is at a loss for words. Around Washington, silence was common, but seldom was it due to him wanting to say something and being unable. 

Though it takes a moment, Washington does find something to say. “The only explanation I can provide is that I asked you to come to me with any doubts only to find out mere days later that you have been seen in conversation with one of my greatest detractors.” 

“And then I came to you and you were suddenly too busy to receive me,” Lafayette points out, though he’s mortified when he sounds more petulant than right. 

“You misunderstand,” Washington says, but it’s a gentle correction. “You must take my actions not as a reflection of your character but my own.” Pausing again, he lifts his shoulders in something too reserved to be a shrug, but still it conveys a certain helplessness. “Gates and Conway have already turned the opinion of several men who previously were once my supporters. Men to whom I owe a debt, men who owe a debt to me. When I learned that Conway had spent time with you I…” Washington does not sigh precisely, but exhales slowly and silently. “I asked myself how hard would it truly be to bend your opinion as he had others.”

Lafayette guesses that he must look as offended as he feels because Washington immediately implores him to consider things as Washington sees them. “Is it not true that I have only known defeat since you’ve arrived?” he asks. “The greatest American victory you could have been a part of came in Saratoga, far from where you were with me. And now, here in this camp, surrounded everywhere by signs of disorder and dysfunction that by the design of certain schemers I am entirely incapable of fixing?” 

Washington shakes his head is if in wonder at the magnitude of these failures. “I would not have blamed you. I did not blame you.” Unwilling as he has been since they met to see Washington unhappy, Lafayette leaps to contradict this list of faults, but Washington will not hear him. 

“And then--” he says, not yielding the floor “--when you came to speak to me, Hamilton counselled me to act as if we had no suspicions at all. I could not. I am simply not built for the kind of subterfuge.”

“Do you think that I am?” Lafayette asks, a little indignant. He had never been accused of being artful. If he was a master at masking his emotions he might have been far more popular at court. “Do you think that I could hold such a low opinion of you as Conway professes and not alter my behavior toward you?”

Washington looks at him with an expression both gentle and tired, “As I said before, the fault is in my character alone. I found myself unable, or perhaps simply unwilling, to weather the change.” 

He has the gall to look as though Lafayette will be disappointed, to look as if he thinks that, in speaking of his cares and fears and revealing his inner strife, he has finished with the same result as when he started. Instead of Conway’s poor opinion of Washington, it seems that Lafayette is expected to take _Washington’s_ poor opinion of Washington. Impossible. Rather than hardening against the General, Lafayette’s heart is beating faster with the knowledge that Washington places so high a value on Lafayette’s sentiments as to be as upset that they might be altered. And when he stops and think of the circumstances that brought this about, it aches for the additional strain Washington has had to endure.

So Lafayette smiles for him, puts on display everything in his heart that is prudent to show: relief and respect, both warmed by obvious affection. “You do yourself too much disservice, sir. I’m not upset. Actually I am grateful.” 

Washington looks appalled that Lafayette would say such a thing about the rough treatment he has received in the past few days. 

“Truly, I am,” Lafayette promises. “It reminds me that you are human. I will have this little incident now to remember when you are too good at pretending to be a statue.” 

But Washington takes little comfort in such a statement, his black mood as hard to dispel as fog from over a landscape. “It would be better, I think, for the monument they’ve created in my image to lead. If I did nothing at all, at least I would make fewer mistakes.” His grave bearing alone makes such a statement seem more frank than self-pitying.

But Lafayette is undeterred. “No, sir,” he says firmly. He steps forward without thinking, only wanting to make absolutely sure that Washington is listening when he says, “Your men follow a figure of flesh and blood. They want to follow a great man, but a man all the same. You should hear how excitedly they share stories of when they have seen you angry. Oh!” This reminds Lafayette of something he has been meaning to ask the General about since he heard it. With genuine curiosity he asks, “Did you really lift up two men at the same time off the ground by their necks when you found them fighting?” 

At first Washington blinks at him in surprise, completely caught off guard by such an unexpected question. Then, wonderfully, he actually laughs. It’s just a short bark of amusement, but Lafayette feels as if his own feet have suddenly left the ground. He’s never made Washington truly laugh before. 

Here Lafayette came to set things right and they are unexpectedly _better._ He beams, thrilled.

Washington shakes his head at him, answers, “Of course not.” But when Lafayette pouts at him playfully as if disappointed to find the story to be a myth, Washington chuckles again and admits, “There was an incident where it was necessary for me to hold two rabble-rousers still as I spoke to them in the very strongest terms, but I assure you their feet remained on solid ground.” 

Still practically floating, Lafayette feels bold enough to tease him back gently. “Ah, but this does not mean you could not have done so if you had wanted to, only that you didn’t. I must be sure not make you angry.” 

Regrettably his teasing only distresses Washington, “My dear boy,” he says, far too gravely. “I would never-- even if you were to decide against me I--”

Without thinking, Lafayette places his hand lightly upon the General’s chest to quell him. Washington stills immediately, leaves the rest of his sentence unsaid. Before Lafayette can think better of his familiarity his hand is covered by Washington’s own. Lafayette cannot help but glance down, sees his own slender fingertips peeking out from under the broad palm, thicker fingers and feels a little twist in his chest.

“Of course, I know that,” he says, still looking at the press of their hands. He looks up, says easily, kindly, “I am not afraid of you.” 

Washington holds less tightly to this bit of worry, hesitates only for a moment before he nods, accepting the evidence laid before him, the chief of which must be Lafayette’s hand on his chest. “Thank you,” he says, patting that hand lightly with his own. “For your loyalty, for your candor.”

Relieved, Lafayette is seized by a sudden impulse, and he does not stop himself from pressing up onto the balls of his feet, and placing a kiss, quick and feather-light, upon first one and then the other of Washington’s cheeks. He endeavors to make them seem as if they are just custom, safely foreign and purely filial, and ignores the way his heart thumps hard enough to hurt when his chest presses against Washington’s and he feels their hands caught between them. 

He sways back, balancing on his heels, and Washington looks down at him, thoughtful and still. 

Lafayette does everything he can to make his smile carefree. “I will go now,” he says, slipping his fingers carefully from out under from under Washington’s palm. “And when I leave I will not be saying a word to either Laurens or Hamilton. Leave them to wonder a little bit at the result of our conversation, if you would, but tell them soon enough that I am absolved.” 

Washington steps away, but slowly, “And am I to tell them they are forgiven for their behavior or that they are not?” 

Lafayette raises his eyebrows, “That will depend entirely upon the manner in which they come to me, I think.” 

He leaves with a final image of the General with a small smile before he returns to his desk. 

 

Lafayette expects for Laurens and Hamilton to come to him at the same time. There is strength in numbers, after all. He also expects them to dither longer before they offer their apologies, but they came to his quarters promptly that evening. He has them shown in by Gimat, and greets them only with a nod, hands clasped behind his back in order to look stern and to hide his fidgeting. At first glance, they seem very contrite and very uncomfortable. Or rather, Laurens looks contrite and Hamilton looks uncomfortable. 

Laurens starts. “We come to make amends.” 

Beside him Hamilton nods, saying, “You will I hope allow for some... overzealousness given your own desire to protect and help the General.”

Lafayette has had an afternoon to ready himself for this game. He purses his lips and take his time to form a reply. 

“I did not realize,” he says at last. “That my desire to protect and help him was considered such an incontrovertible fact, given that it took so little to arouse your suspicions.” 

Laurens winces visibly. “If you’d only known what we have been reading from people who claim to be his friends,” he tries to explain. “The letters telling of people who previously would never have breathed a word against him taking glee in what they see as a prelude to his downfall.”

“We have sound fears that there is a scheme to replace him or, barring that, force him to resign,” Hamilton adds in defense of their ardor.

Lafayette knows this already, and knows that it was Washington’s own fears that kept him at bay. He suspects, however, that they do not know that he knows, and so he enjoys another chance to tease them. Calmly, as if with only idle curiosity, he asks, “Are you saying that your best plan to keep me loyal to His Excellency was to prevent me entirely from seeing him?”

Almost simultaneously, Laurens and Hamilton turn their heads to look at each other. Lafayette wonders if they expected less resistance from him. Or perhaps they expected a rebuff of a different sort, and in preparing that he would be passionate in his anger they do not know what to make of his reserve. They turn back to him, and redouble their efforts.

“Not at all!” Hamilton swears. “We had no intention of keeping you from him _entirely_ \--”

Laurens interrupts Hamilton to agree with him. “We just needed time to gather our wits and prepare--”

Hamilton seemingly unable to bear the slight against his wits finally lays the blame for keeping Lafayette away at the right feet. “And the General was so much afflicted by the thought that you doubted him--” 

Lafayette still enjoys this thought -- that Washington placed such significance on his affection, his regard -- so much that his stern expression cracks wide open on a grin. Immediately, Hamilton and Laurens stop speaking over each other as they realize they have been made unwitting actors in a scene. Lafayette lets himself laugh at their twin expressions of confusion. 

The game now given away, Laurens seems only relieved, but Hamilton appears slightly embarrassed. There’s a bit of extra color in his cheeks when he says, “You are not angry at all, are you?”

Lafayette shakes his head, small chuckles still bubbling up now and then. “Not terribly.” 

If Lafayette had grown up with brothers it might have been less surprising that they pounce on him, get their hands under his arms and lift him up only to drop him just a few feet back. He yelps at the ticklish sensation of their hard fingers in his sides, laughs again, at a higher more embarrassing pitch than before. In desperation he retaliates just as childishly, reaches out and tugs their hair out of place, first Hamilton and then Laurens. He would laugh at them when they abandon their attack in order to groom it smooth again, but he is too busy catching his breath.

“The only reason that I am not angry, I’ll have you know,” Lafayette tells them as he straightens his jacket, “is that I am too relieved that this unpleasantness is over to bother. And I don’t feel even a little guilty about having you on about it when the two of you had me in such a state, treating me like a- a schemer. Especially considering that you of all people should know my heart when it comes to him.” He says it without thinking, and regrets it when his heart has such a secret. But looking at Hamilton and Laurens they only appear sheepish, as if they aware of only the most seemly and appropriate parts of Lafayette’s affection. 

“We are sorry,” Laurens says and Hamilton nods a vigorous agreement. Knowing they are not truly out of favor makes them even more sincerely repentant. 

Lafayette waves his hand, eager to be charitable now that he has been exacting. “Enough. I only ask that you have a drink with me before you go.” 

Before this mess with Conway, Lafayette had tracked down and purchased six bottles of wine worth giving as a gift. Three are destined for Washington’s table-- he will have them sent tomorrow-- but three he intended to keep for himself to enjoy on special occasions. He has Gimat bring out one of the bottles with four glasses and they drink a toast to friendship. By the end of the night, however, Lafayette’s three bottles are gone and he is begging Gimat, through near-constant giggles, to guard the other three with his life while Laurens and Hamilton offer increasingly higher ransoms for them. In short, it is an exceedingly fine night.

 

In many way things return to the state they were before. Hamilton and Laurens are once again affectionate comrades, while Washington and Hamilton return to their previous habit of meeting with Lafayette for lessons. In almost every way Lafayette thrills that he has been brought so closely into Washington’s confidence. He is troubled only that as they continue to explore and expand the usefulness of their magic there is still a reluctance on Washington’s part, a hesitation to commit fully. Lafayette would call it disinterest if there were not times that Washington stared quite intently at the results of some charm or conjuration. There remains for Washington some misgiving, some doubt about magic, or so Lafayette suspects. 

Each time it happens, Lafayette means to get Washington alone and ask what troubles him but there are so many ready distractions. For example, with Washington’s blessing Lafayette brings Hamilton to meet with de Kalb, and over the course of a few meals they all discuss and dream about magical strategies. Not three days later Hamilton provides Lafayette with a stunningly detailed proposal (written in the new invisible ink) of how they may use magic in the summer campaign and asks him for his notes. Lafayette, pulled more fully into the circle, is also now privy to Hamilton and Laurens’ discussion of the simmering resentments among the officers, and between the delegates in Congress. It troubles him-- he’d not thought of there being so much dissent in the fight for liberty-- but none of them, not Hamilton, Laurens, or Washington, seem very surprised by it. Their only thought seems to be how to manage it, not how end it entirely. 

Near the end of January, a letter comes to Lafayette that offers him the sort of command he has been hoping all this time to have. It asks, with full confidence, for Lafayette to lead a daring expedition. More wonderfully still it is to invade Canada, and drive from there British soldiers that have been in control of the territory since the Seven Years War. If such an invasion were successful, Lafayette would be lauded up and down the halls of Versailles. In all his dreams of coming to America, he never thought of anything quite so grand. 

And yet every part it is so distressingly contrary to how he would have wished it to happen. To start with, the letter comes to him by way of General Gates on behalf of the Board of War, and it strongly implies that Washington has had no hand at all in its creation. The orders are to make for Albany, and though he will be allowed to take with him any French officers he finds worthy, once there he is to meet with Conway, who will have already undertaken preparations for the campaign. Conway, it seems, is to be Lafayette’s second in command.

Lafayette reads the letter several times, and when the meaning of the words fail to change, he calls for Gimat. “I must go to Headquarters right away,” he says, putting on his cloak. “Please have my horse readied.”

At Headquarters he finds his commander and his friends in the aides’ office, deep enough in conversation that they are startled when Lafayette rushes in from the foyer. 

“This letter,” he bursts out, forgetting in his agitation any sort of greeting even to Washington. “From Gates, sir, I do not understand it.” 

Washington does not ask what letter he means or indeed express much surprise at his distress. Instead, glancing to Hamilton and Laurens, he says calmly, “I think perhaps privacy would be prudent, Marquis.” 

With long strides he begins to leave the room, with Laurens and Hamilton following. Lafayette watches him cross the room, seeking some sign or answer in the man’s face and getting none. All he can do is follow them out. 

Once there is a closed door between them and the rest of the house, Lafayette attempts to pass Gate’s letter to Washington. Washington declines it, “A copy was sent along with other correspondence.” 

“But why did it not come to me from you?” Lafayette asks. “Am I not under your command?” 

Again Washington glances to Hamilton and Laurens. Then, a bit tiredly, he sighs, “You are. Nominally. As you know, Marquis, things are not exactly in a state of easy balance.” 

“But what I am to do?” Lafayette asks. “What will become of my reputation if I came here for laurels and refuse the first campaign offered to me? I confess I--” he feels a blush rise on his cheeks. “Obviously I wish to accept. It would be an honor to drive the British from Canada, to see the French colonists there join the American cause. It’s every wish of my heart to bring them liberty but--” and here his mood swings wildly again to despair. “I do not want it if it will cause you harm in this-- in these--” He cuts himself off, not remembering the word in English for the tangled conspiracy he knows is moving against Washington. One that has now swept him along with it. 

Washington tries to give him comfort, “It is not so very dire as that, my boy.” 

“You must advise me,” Lafayette pleads. “If you tell me to refuse, I will.” Yet the thought makes him burn with embarrassment. What can he write home to explain himself when so much must be kept a secret?

It’s Hamilton that speaks instead. “Sir,” he says, and the fact that he then waits for Washington’s leave to speak gives Lafayette some sense that they are in a delicate bind, a knot that must be unravelled with the barest tug of fingertips. 

Washington nods, and Hamilton continues, “If you don’t mind my saying, wouldn’t it be best to learn more? The letter was so very vague regarding any details. Might they have bitten off more than they can chew, invading Quebec in winter?” 

“You think a campaign like this must fail?” Lafayette asks, worried.

Hamilton considers the question, and while he does Laurens points out, “Gates was in command at Saratoga. He has found victory in the North.”

Hamilton frowns, considering the point. “Yes, though Arnold was with him when he did. I think you’d need him as well to have any chance, but that would depend entirely upon his recovery from the wound he suffered at Saratoga.” He shakes his head, “Truly I think we do not know enough yet to say one way or the other.” 

Lafayette looks in concern at Washington. The General looks back at him as a sphinx might, sympathetic, perhaps, but not so much that he will give away a firm answer. “I think it best that you go to York before you agree to go to Albany. Speak with Gates. Learn everything you can.”

“And if I find only disaster?” 

Washington sighs. “Then nothing in the world should induce you to undertake the campaign. Nothing, Marquis, not honor or reputation.”

Lafayette meets Washington’s eyes and sees the force of the order. “I will go,” he says. “But under your orders only, sir.” 

Washington nods, “As you wish.” 

 

Everything is a whirlwind after, during which Lafayette vacillates from exhilaration to dread. Some mornings he wakes feeling every bit of the winter chill, the snowfall that seems determined to chastise him for his arrogance in attempting to make war out of season. Then he will have dinner with the French officers and be lifted up on their assurances that the British in Quebec cannot be so well-established and go to bed with a heart light and hopeful. Other days it is the reverse, waking up to a new day and feeling all of the potential of the future, only to receive with the post a letter from Laurens’ father, the current President of Congress, warning him of potential machinations by Gates and the Board of War as yet unrevealed, and Lafayette is pushed into a gloom as dark as the falling night. 

The day he departs Valley Forge, however, and faces the desolate white road ahead of him, his feelings start and end with dread. He stops by Headquarters for a moment only, trailed by his French compatriots who certainly do not relish standing in the cold for very long. Inside, he says goodbye to Hamilton and Laurens in the French custom, quick presses of cheek to cheek. He is not brave enough however, to repeat the gesture with Washington under their watchful gazes. 

It is enough that Washington takes Lafayette’s hand by the door and wishes him every success and ease in his journey. 

“I will do all that I can, sir, to make you proud.” Lafayette makes this vow instead of saying how painful he is finding the idea of leaving.

Washington favors him with a small, fond smile, covers their clasped hands with another. “All that I ask is you return safely.” 

Lafayette presses his lips together, and doesn’t allow himself to extend their goodbye any longer. He nods a final time and turns to step out again into snow. 

Miserably, they must ride out of camp directly into the wind, but Lafayette does not think it only the bite of the cold air that makes it feel so wrong to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://fickleobsessions.tumblr.com). I'm never too good for asks. Please shout at me.


	6. Albany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette tries his hand at politics and misses everyone terribly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, I am sorry that this took so long. It was a difficult part to write for many reasons, but I hope that face that it's a BIG update helps? A little bit? Next part is a lot more fun to write. 
> 
> **Please note:** This chapter introduces the Oneida, both to Lafayette and the war. I have a post [here](http://fickleobsessions.tumblr.com/post/150362050174/supplemental-info-for-a-heart-truly-convinced-i) that explains my reasons, reading, and choices regarding this. But, knowing this a subject where nuance is important, I do invite feedback!
> 
> As always, I need to thank [Ossapher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ossapher/pseuds/ossapher) for being a wonderful, thoughtful and sweet beta.

The journey to the town of York to meet with General Gates is miserable. It does not stay quite so bitterly cold, but this is not the blessing it might appear to be. The warmer weather turns snow into freezing rain and makes crossing the rivers that lie between Lafayette and Congress’s new place of residence frightfully dangerous. On the final day of the journey, desperate for decent shelter, Lafayette and his party ride past sundown and finally come to the little town at nearly half past seven. While his fellow French officers collapse into beds or gather around fireplaces with hot drinks, Lafayette demands to be told at which house he may call upon General Gates. 

When Lafayette arrives on Gate’s doorstep, he is told nervously by a servant that the general is in the middle of dinner.

“Ah,” he says, not allowing himself to be deterred in the slightest. “I hope that he will forgive me for not being dressed accordingly.”

The housemaid does not have the courage to try to refuse him a second time. “Oh,” she says lightly. “I am sure he will not. One moment, sir.” 

A place at the table is made for him while Lafayette stands outside the dining room. Through the door he can hear a low hum of surprised murmurs, and the scraping sound of chairs being scooted over. A moment later the door opens and he is announced, and Gates stands up from his place at the head of the table to greet him. 

“Marquis,” Gate says, loudly but not quite gallantly. “What a pleasure to finally have the honor of meeting you.” 

Lafayette smiles faintly, “I hope you will forgive me for making you wait so long. There was much to do and to prepare for after receiving your orders.”

He notes that the major general looks slightly uncomfortable at the mention of the expedition into Canada. Gates is, Lafayette has been told, only a few years older than Washington, yet the differences in their constitutions could not be more apparent. His hair is thin and very white, and his eyes droop, giving him a sleepy expression. His chin sags softly from his jaw and his bearing projects nothing of the strength, the vigor of Washington's long, solid limbs and upright posture. 

With a slightly uneasy smile, Gates gestures helpfully to the open chair at the table. “I hope that your travels were not too difficult given the season.” 

“Actually, it was quite difficult,” Lafayette answers honestly as he sits down. “The weather was not in our favor.” 

He wishes to ask immediately about the details of his command, but etiquette dictates he must first sit through a seemingly endless round of introductions. Gates, in his role of master of both the house and table, sets the tone of the conversation and he steers it often to the various accomplishments of the officers present, as well as his own famous victory at Saratoga. Lafayette gets the feeling he is meant to be impressed, but he can only muster impatience. 

The dinner served to him at Gate’s table is richer than had been customary at Valley Forge and the wine more freely offered, and though Lafayette does not intentionally overindulge, the heavy dinner mixes with his fatigue from travel. It is not long before he becomes quite drowsy. Not feeling that he is at his sharpest, Lafayette soon decides it would be better to press Gates for information at a more formal meeting as soon as it can be arranged. 

At the end of the meal, the toasts begin and the guests all drink to each other, to the colonies, to the hopefully grand future of many victories against the British. Lafayette sips whenever prompted, waiting patiently for what will surely be the final toast from a group of officers in the Continental Army. He is thoroughly shocked when, after they all drink to their host, the officers begin to push away from the table in order to retire to the parlor. 

Though he feels a flush of heat spreading up the back of his neck at the thought of causing a scene, Lafayette stays seated. “Gentlemen,” he says, making every effort to speak both calmly and clearly. “You seem to have forgotten to drink to the health of General Washington.”

A perfectly awkward silence follows his comment. It is broken at last when Gates says, “Ah. So we have.” 

The glasses upon the table are refilled as quickly as possible, but still there is plenty of time, Lafayette is pleased to note, for everyone to contemplate their oversight. 

Finally Gates raises his glass, and Lafayette stands up to raise his own. “To General Washington’s health,” Gates says, without smiling or even looking at his guests. “Long may he live.” 

The toast is repeated by all before they drink, but Lafayette alone finishes it with the line from the popular song: “Our hearts to possess.” He smiles to himself, reminded of how much Washington hates to hear it sung after him when he rides through the camp, and how Lafayette suspects it is only because Washington cannot completely hide how much it flatters him that they do. He thinks again of how Gates and Conway wish to tear down such a moderate and honorable man.

Lafayette does not linger very much longer, and he takes his leave quite shortly after the party is taken to the parlor. When he returns to his lodgings, Gimat takes his cloak and asks him immediately, “What was your impression?” 

“Not very favorable,” Lafayette admits. 

Very little that happens while he is in York does much to dissuade Lafayette from this opinion. The next day, at a meeting set specifically to discuss the details of the Canadian expedition, Gates still passes off Lafayette’s questions. Instead of answering him, Gates urges Lafayette to go to Albany to meet with Conway who is, Gates assures him, “Already hard at work preparing for the campaign.” 

Lafayette is hardly happy to be told to place his trust in Conway. He takes a deep breath, sets his mouth and shoulders alike in firm line, then begins to carefully place his cards on the table in the arrangement Hamilton had helped him to determine would be best. 

“If I am to accept command,” Lafayette says with what he hopes is just the right amount of emphasis on the ‘if.’ “You must understand that both my military training and my delicate position as a volunteer in your army compels me only to correspond directly with General Washington. Until I am told otherwise -- and I hope that I will not -- he is my commanding officer. I will of course send copies of my letters to the Board of War so they are informed.” 

Gates seems unsure of how to respond, and even makes a funny little noise in the back of his throat, as if some word he’d tried to get out out died before it could be said. 

Lafayette continues, “And obviously, all orders to me from the Board of War will have to pass through my commander’s hands first. So that I may be sure that everything is of a perfect accord.” 

Gates laughs, sounding more than just a little uncomfortable. “I do believe that will result in some delay in our communications if correspondence is to be passed between York to Valley Forge and onto Albany, Marquis.” 

Lafayette keeps his face impassive, as if Gates is stating an unneeded and unimportant fact. 

Only a moment later, Gates capitulates. He smiles with exaggerated, false cheer and says, “But of course we will be happy to do all that is necessary to ensure your confidence.” 

“I am grateful,” Lafayette says. Then he pulls out a letter from his jacket pocket. “And while we are on the subject of confidence, I did want to let you know that I will be submitting the following requests to Congress.” 

Hamilton had helped him with this too, as Washington’s aide he knew quite well the things Congress had the most difficult time obtaining. Lafayette’s list of demands include replacing Conway with Baron de Kalb as his second in command, two million dollars in the Congress’s paper currency, and another two hundred thousand in gold or silver. There must also be reasonable positions offered to his French comrades and a promise that all the necessary supplies that Lafayette requests will be provided to him. 

For a moment Gates stares at the letter with an open mouth. Then he arranges his face in a more sober expression and attempts to demur. “While I understand your apprehension, sir, I assure you we will be doing our utmost at all times to ensure your success.” 

Having seen firsthand how little the Congress’s utmost can provide, Lafayette steels himself to now deliver his trump card. “I am sure. However if these terms cannot be agreed upon before I go to Albany, I shall have no choice but to resign my commission with your army.” His stomach trembles at the thought of just giving up, but his voice stays firm. “I do not say this lightly as I have no doubt that the other French officers shall do the same.” 

Gates takes the news about as gravely as Hamilton promised he would when Lafayette floated the possibility by him. If the French officers, if _Lafayette,_ were to abandon the Americans now it would all but ensure that there would be no treaty, and perhaps even no further money or supplies sent as aid. Gates carefully clears his throat, “Then please know that I, indeed everyone on the Board of War and in Congress, will do everything we can to prevent your feeling that you must be forced to leave us.” 

“I do hope so, as leaving your country’s service so soon would be very painful for me.” Indeed if his hand is forced in this matter, Lafayette is quite sure he will never forgive Conway for his doublespeak or Gates for giving such a dubious gift to him as this command. 

Lafayette stands up, “If you will excuse me.” He bows to Gates, “I thank you for your time, but I am now needing to meet with the President of Congress to discuss these same issues.”

Lafayette leaves to meet with Laurens’s father hoping that Gates understands at last how very carefully they all must proceed. 

Henry Laurens, Lafayette soon learns, is a very respectable and entirely serious man. He accepts Lafayette’s compliments regarding his son with a small smile, but shifts the conversation almost immediately to his doubts about the campaign. When Lafayette frets about such dire conclusions regarding the possibility of success in Canada, the elder Laurens can only apologize for giving him cause to worry but no solutions to absolve himself of it. 

“Congress, you see, is quite convinced, and I do not think their minds are ready to be changed.”

Lafayette takes this as a sign that he must be equally stubborn about his demands. 

Over the course of many meetings, and conversations, and in many letters Lafayette digs in his heels like a mule, and is not shy about reminding Congress of his importance. He does not enjoy making himself so troublesome; actually it makes him nervous and irritable. Thankfully, being in a fouler mood than usual rather helps him make this show of obstinance to drive home his point. It works, and with some relief Lafayette is able to leave York with sufficient promises that he will have everything he desires. His only concession in the negotiations was to accept that Conway will remain his second in command. 

He goes next to Albany, and the road there is perfectly miserable. Lafayette cannot imagine marching Continental soldiers through this and ending up with anywhere near the same number of men at the end of the march as he had at the start. Some, too many most likely, will succumb to illness, and still more will most likely desert their companies in favor of regular shelter. 

Once arrived in Albany, Lafayette finds very little to encourage him. The army assembled there are as poorly clothed and only a little better fed than their counterparts in Valley Forge. After contacting the officers stationed there he learns that none of them -- except of course Conway -- believes the invasion of Quebec to be a good idea. Lafayette is particularly alarmed to get a letter from Benedict Arnold, the major general who had served with Gates at the British defeat at Saratoga, stating in the clearest terms that he does not believe the campaign to be well-conceived. He goes so far as to outright call General Gates a coward. And General Schuyler, over dinner one evening, tells Lafayette of his own quite disastrous attempt to make the same invasion in the winter of two years previous. The stories of soldiers lost and starving fill Lafayette with dread.

For a few weeks, Lafayette holds out the slimmest hope that supplies requested will appear and make such a bold campaign seem possible, but he is not surprised at all when the sleds and wagons and the supplies they should have been laden with do not appear when promised. With each letter he receives come fresh excuses, and a new expected date of delivery. Lafayette laments, perhaps almost as keenly as Washington did in Valley Forge, magic’s inability to produce vast stores from nothing. 

With Baron de Kalb Lafayette does devise a strategy to use magic to buy them a little more time for the supplies to arrive. The Americans hope invade Canada by crossing Lake Champlain with their supplies and artillery on sleds. It’s a crucial piece of their plan, for it shortens the length of the march and adds an element of surprise. Each day the passes threatens to make the ice across the lake thinner, and the crossing more treacherous. To counteract this thaw, Lafayette practices a more elemental magic. Having grown up in Auvergne, Lafayette had little use for the magic of ice and snow, and he doesn’t relish now the long afternoons of standing out in all sorts of weather, pushing out waves of frozen air until he can freeze a river crossing in under an hour. 

Beyond freezing rivers and catching colds, Lafayette finds there is little else to do but detail his concerns in an endless series of letters to anyone who will accept his correspondence. 

It seems to him that all of the cruelest predictions of those who doubted Lafayette may yet come true. He can guess easily what they will say. They will all agree that he has bitten off more than he could chew, that the Americans put too much faith in a boy of only twenty years, and also that they must not have given him supplies because they feared his wasting them. Those at court who are not his friends will point out ruthlessly that Lafayette was forbidden to go to America, and yet insisted he knew better. They will shake their heads about the result: a defeat so predictable and embarrassing that it would likely give the King’s advisers all the cause they need to dissuade him from an alliance. To save France the embarrassment, the defeat will be laid solely at Lafayette’s feet.

The only promising thing to occur in the entire muddled endeavor is asking for and receiving an audience with an assembly of Indian nations. After the last year’s frustrating defeats due to bad information from incompetent scouts Washington had expressed to Lafayette a powerful desire for Indian guides, and Lafayette, perhaps a bit too confidently, had assured him that he would be ideal for the task. 

He believed this not only because the French had several alliances with them during the Seven Years War, but because of the not-at-all-insignificant matter of magic. All of the previous American emissaries to the tribes would have been ordinary men. In Lafayette’s studies of the Seven Years War, he knew very well that this is something many of the tribes must have considered a detraction. (Washington, far from being shocked to learn there was some magic among the tribes, took the information as if it something he’d not thought yet thought of, but seemed obvious once it was stated.) 

Despite all of his confidence when speaking to Washington, and then again to General Schuyler when he reached Albany, the night before the assembly Lafayette must admit to himself that he is nervous. He wonders if he hadn’t had a bit of misplaced bravado and feels a familiar fear bubble up, a dread that he will humiliate himself in front of a crowd. 

The next morning, he, General Schuyler, and a small group of commissioners and dignitaries ride to nearby Johnstown to meet with the assembled representatives of the Indian nations to present their case for an alliance. And while there is a great deal of ceremony involved in the proceedings (including a very careful, mannerly exchange of gifts) and some people are addressed with titles Lafayette did not expect, he needn’t have worried. He is relieved to be introduced as an honored guest along with a gentle beg of pardon for his unfamiliarity with the rituals and etiquette explained by his recent arrival in America.

Lafayette then says a few words in French and (in somewhat florid language) attempts to pay what he hopes is the proper respect to the honor in addressing such famed warriors whom he hopes will become cherished friends. Since he has the floor, Lafayette chooses this time to begin to cast about the room for hints of magic. He finds no shortage of whispers, and trails of it about the room, some of them quite powerful. As he speaks, he notes that several of the Oneida leaders lean forward, interested. They do so first when Lafayette mentions the King of France and his interest in the American cause, and then again when Lafayette gently makes an impression of his magic upon the room.

Immediately after he concludes his speech, Lafayette is asked several questions by the Oneida, primarily about the King, and he chooses his words carefully when he answers. Without a formal alliance, it is difficult to make promises, and he must talk instead of the King’s feeling and heart for the Americans. In front of the American delegation he must leave certain details out when describing the precise nature of the French arms and aid; they are even more likely than the tribes to hold Lafayette to any promises, and they can know nothing of magic. Still, the representatives of the Oneida seem pleased with his answer. Finished, Lafayette listens to the Americans make their case to the tribes over the course of the afternoon. Some of the chiefs are not at all careful to hide their misgivings. 

The day ends with a resolution to speak again tomorrow. Lafayette, thinking the council is now over, is surprised when a representative of the Oneida declares that they would like to adopt him into their tribe as a tribute to old alliances with the French King. This request causes no small amount of astonishment among the Americans, enough that Lafayette feels a bit self-conscious when he agrees, knowing of no way and indeed no reason to decline. The ritual, he is then told, will be performed that evening and he is given a description of the location of where the Oneida are staying. 

Lafayette, Gimat, and another French officer chosen on the basis of his tendency not to gossip, leave their American companions behind shortly before sundown and ride to where the Oneidas are lodging for the duration of the council. They come to a little cabin owned by a friend of a Protestant missionary with whom the Oneida chief, Skenandoa, apparently has a close friendship. Lafayette is welcomed in and taken to Skenandoa, an impressively tall man almost entirely unbent by the many years he has lived. Even though he is only sitting calmly as he listens to Lafayette’s introduction, Skenandoa’s magic seems to flow from him like a river current. His magic feels steady, cool and powerful.

After Lafayette is introduced, Skenandoa chides him to come closer. “My eyes do not see as far as they did when I was young, and they see even less when the sun goes down.” 

Lafayette obliges him, scoots his chair closer and leans forward. For some time, the chief looks him over, weak eyes traveling over Lafayette’s face, and his strong magic parting around him like water. Once satisfied, Skenandoa nods at him, “You have a strong spirit to go with your power.”

“Thank you,” Lafayette says, not knowing quite what else to say. 

Skenandoa sits back in his chair in such a practiced way that Lafayette has no way of missing the sign that some sort of negotiation has started, though for what terms precisely he does not know. “Do you believe the English tell the truth?” 

Lafayette answers as carefully as he can. “I think that they both lie and tell the truth as much as any other men on Earth, sir.” 

Thankfully Skenandoa finds his response amusing, and he laughs at Lafayette, voice husky and dry. Lafayette smiles at him, relieved. Once he has stopped chuckling, however, Skenandoa becomes quite thoughtful. When he next speaks it is with the full weight of leadership upon his demeanor. “We did not wish to fight for your people or the English during your war.”

It takes Lafayette some time to decide how to respond. “While I will understand if you do not, I hope that you will find a reason to join us this time. Your help would be invaluable.” 

Skenandoa does not appear to be much interested in being flattered. “Early in the fighting, the English were weak. Others that fought with them could hide from their guns. They would kill many of the English and lose almost no warriors. But still they came, and they grew stronger. Too strong for those who fought against them.” 

Lafayette can do nothing but nod his head. The long string of defeats had been a great shame to his nation, but Lafayette had only been a child during the Seven Years War. Indeed it had started before he was even born, and he knew of it from books and treatises. Skenandoa’s failing eyes seem to recall that war clearly, staring through Lafayette and beyond to that unhappy past. 

“The English are still strong,” Skenandoa says, looking to Lafayette for his response. “They have many guns, many ships.” 

“This is true,” Lafayette admits. 

“The colonists have very little.” Again Lafayette nods; he can hardly deny it. “And their leaders have no...” Skenandoa frowns, clearly searching for a word. He finds it eventually, “You call it magic.” 

“That,” Lafayette says with an excited smile, “is not true.” Skenandoa looks at him in surprise. “You know of General Washington?” 

The chief nods. 

“I am his friend,” Lafayette says, feeling proud and yet also a bit self-conscious to lay that claim. “I can assure you he has a great deal of magic. I have been teaching him all that I know for months, and he is very strong. I think he may even be more powerful than myself. And he is not alone.” He does not think it prudent to say that there is only Hamilton. There may yet be more in the future, and Hamilton will do the work of at least two men if he’s given the opportunity. 

Skenandoa takes his time to digest this information. Eventually he asks, “Do the English know?” 

“They have no idea,” Lafayette is pleased to tell him. “In fact I do not think they can even conceive of it. And our strategy will be to keep them in the dark for as long as we are able. They will, in their ignorance, make potentially costly mistakes.” 

As seems to be his habit, Skenandoa spends a long moment in thought. “I will speak to my people.” 

“Thank you,” Lafayette says in relief, but the chief’s face tells him that he has spoken too quickly. 

“If I were to send warriors,” Skenandoa says, sounding far decided on the matter. “I might be doing harm to my people to help yours. They would have fewer men here to defend them.” 

“Please believe that I do not want your people suffer,” Lafayette says. Though he means it, he still frets a bit selfishly for his own goal. Then he realizes that Skenandoa is looking at him as if he is expecting something more than sentiment. “In lieu of warriors,” Lafayette says, considering what he can offer. “What about a fort? One with very good defenses may allow for your people be better protected. And I have with me here, sir, a French engineer who would certainly be able to help you.”

It seems to satisfy. Or at least the old man nods and says again, “I will speak to my people.” 

“And I will do the same,” Lafayette replies. It appears this time to be the right thing to say. 

Soon after their agreement there is a demonstration of both music and magic. A tall fire has been built outside in a clearing, and Lafayette is given a homespun blanket to cover his shoulders in addition to his cloak. Over the beating of several drums, the Oneida sing. The melody is strange to Lafayette at first; he’s never heard its like before, but he listens and find that with time it changes. The unfamiliar songs come into harmony with the percussion, begin to wash over him, and take him along.

There is snow upon the ground and where it melts about the fire the ground is wet and muddy, so there is no dance to accompany the music. Instead the bonfire changes colors and Lafayette wonders if it is according to the setting of each verse of the song, green for the forest, blue for the river or the sky, and a dark purple for a some sort of underworld, or perhaps a cave. Illusions of animals, eagles, deer, rabbits, and even (most startlingly of all) a bear appear, round and leap over the fire and then disappear again. Sturgeon appear when the fire glows blue and swim through the flames. It’s a lovely work of collaborative magic.

At no point, however, does there appear to be any sort of ceremony or ritual of adoption. Lafayette is not surprised to learn that the gesture was made only to help them speak in private. However, he does ask if there is anything he ought to tell the Americans in order to make sure the story is believed. 

Skenandoa smiles at him, “Tell them that we gave you the name Kayewla.” Lafayette repeats the name and the chief nods. “It is the name of a very great warrior among our people.” Skenandoa turns to leave and return to the fire. After taking a step away from Lafayette, he pauses and turns back. “May it suit you.” 

Although the other men chat about the experience the whole way back to their quarters, Lafayette remains in deep thought about the chief’s words. He did indeed come here to be a great warrior, and he wonders if it shall come to pass. There are a few more days of gifts and talking and negotiation, but eventually the Oneida agree to an alliance along with just a small handful of others. There will be a fort built, overseen by Lafayette’s French engineer, and fifty Oneida warriors will undertake the journey to Valley Forge. Lafayette assures them that they will be greeted well by General Washington and his staff. 

Unfortunately, the sense of satisfaction from having achieved this task does not last. Everyday Lafayette is convinced further of the impossibility of the campaign, and he begins to feel a growing desperation to return to Washington. With very little to do, and not much of an army to prepare, Lafayette sends dozens of letters to anyone he can think of asking to be set free from this miserable limbo. He writes most frequently to Washington, and every time he does Lafayette cannot help but lament the distance that separates them. Washington’s answers come to him too infrequently, and often begging his patience. And Hamilton’s letters in invisible ink often provide Lafayette with no greater sense of relief.

Though his time there seems interminable, the hope for the campaign by all involved dies at last and at the end of March, killed off by lack of supplies and the threat of warmer weather. After threatening the Board of War with the publication of all his letters showing that the campaign was mismanaged and unsupported, Lafayette finally receives the appeasing news that he is to report back to Valley Forge. He is pleased as well to learn that he is to return with de Kalb, but leave Conway behind in Albany. 

He readies himself immediately to go, and for the first few days of the journey south he sets a pace reasonable for the weather. As he draws nearer and nearer to Headquarters, however, he find he does not wish to indulge in any breaks or allow for any delays. He begins to insist that his company push later into the evening, ride through to the next town. It makes him a bit unpopular with his companions. Eventually he rides on with only Gimat beside him to spare them having to keep up. 

Riding into Valley Forge he finds that the camp has changed in his absence, but in most ways remains quite the same. More cabins have been built -- indeed, it seems there are now no more soldiers in tents -- but the men still appear to want for too many things. Lafayette leaves Gimat behind at his quarters to ready them for the night and rides on to the General’s headquarters. Even waiting just one more night before this longed for reunion simply does not even occur to Lafayette.

It is late evening by the time he dismounts and hands his horse off to a young soldier standing guard by the road. Though there is lamplight shining through the windows of the house, when he is ushered inside he finds it quieter than usual, no aides at work, no officers waiting for a chance at an audience. The housemaid leads him into the parlor where a good fire in the hearth is doing its best to warm the room. His eyes go immediately to where Washington is standing up from a chair to greet him. He looks essentially the same as when Lafayette left, but after two months of being buffeted around by ambitious and duplicitous men Lafayette finds himself even more relieved to see him than he expected. 

Then Washington smiles at him. “Welcome back, Marquis,” and he says it so _warmly_ and is so very close at last that Lafayette’s throat suddenly becomes very tight. Washington starts to turn, perhaps to offer him a seat, but before he can Lafayette helplessly gives in to the impulse to throw his arms around the General’s shoulders. 

“Forgive me,” he says, feeling Washington tense in surprise. “You cannot guess how relieved I am. Weeks and weeks of not knowing if I would be able to stay as I wished without having my reputation ruined by--” He cuts himself off before he says something too impolitic.

He feels Washington’s palm come to rest upon his shoulder, soothing him. “It has all been made right, or will be very soon,” Washington tells him as he claps his back with proper sort of affection, neither too stiff or overly familiar. 

When Lafayette does not immediately let go, Washington rubs his palm against his jacket as if to reinvigorate him from the cold. Lafayette sighs and straightens up, and Washington’s hand slips down his back then falls away. 

He becomes aware at last that there are other people in the room, including Generals Greene and Knox, and Lafayette must fight the urge to blush as he greets them and is presented to their wives.

At first glance Lafayette would guess that Caty Greene and Lucy Knox could not be more different, and the more he observes of them the more he is proven right. Mrs. Greene is petite, beautiful, and clearly has no small amount of wit and charm. She greets Lafayette playfully in French and openly delights at his compliments on it. Mrs. Knox is round, modishly fashionable, and has an infectious, vivacious laugh that she does not bother to stifle. She teases both Lafayette and her husband with a cheeky smile when she allows Lafayette to take her hand.

Washington leads him next to a final lady, a diminutive woman with her greying hair neatly coiffed and gentle expression. “And allow me at last to present to you my wife.” 

Lafayette cannot hide his excitement at finally making the acquaintance of Mrs. Washington, nor does he particularly try. He pays her far too many compliments in part because she laughs (pleased with them, or so he hopes) as he does. 

Holding her hands up playfully to cease his flattery, she says, “I had some suspicion that your amiable qualities were being exaggerated in order to ensure my good opinion of you, but I see that in truth I was not told the half of them.” Her knowing look to her husband leaves no doubt of who had been talking of him in his absence; Washington only smiles at the accusation. 

He rests for a while in the parlor, talking of Albany and the Oneida, of the behavior of Gates and Conway, and of his favorable opinion of both Arnold and Schuyler for some time. Lafayette is amazed by what just an hour of good company can accomplish. He had not realized that, although he had been quite relieved at the order to come home, he had not yet recovered from the weeks of unhappiness. For all that his time in Albany away from Washington and his friends had felt so very long, it takes very little time for the effects to clear away. He finds reasons again to be cheerful, to _laugh_ and feel, for this evening at least, carefree.

Though Mrs. Knox and Mrs. Greene speak more often, and ask more questions, Lafayette cannot help but glance constantly to where Mrs. Washington sits with her husband, impossibly curious, both about her and what insight she might afford into her husband. She is not exactly what he expected, but she seems to be exactly as she should be. In fact she is a perfect contrast to her husband, short -- Lafayette guesses her to be not much taller than a scant five feet -- where her husband is so noticeably tall. Her soft skin, and generous hips and bosom speak to a life spent comfortably at home while the General seems as he was made to be always on horseback. Her temperament is as noticeably easy and genial as her husband’s is famously stoic and reserved. 

The second time he must stifle a yawn, Washington says, gentle and amused, “However much we are enjoying the Marquis’ company, I think it would be the kindest to remind him he may join us again tomorrow when he has rested.” 

Mrs. Knox and Mrs. Greene protest, but Mrs. Washington agrees, albeit with a sigh. “You are right,” she says to her husband. Then she looks at Lafayette with a smile, “And I am quite sure we will make him a frequent guest for dinner.”

Though Lafayette would very much prefer to stay, he remembers his duty to write a letter home and if he is to do that tonight, he must do it at once. He bids the room a regretful goodnight, and leaves wishing that he’d had a moment of the General’s time alone, although he cannot precisely say why. 

Gimat has made their quarters as cheerful as possible; there is a fire going and a pot of hot tea waiting. Even Lafayette’s desk has been prepared for him. When he turns to thank Gimat he finds his friend has already left. Lafayette thinks briefly of finding him downstairs, but the fresh paper and ink call to him. 

He sits down to write to Adrienne and tells her of everything that comes to mind, that he is in good health, and tonight, at last, in good spirits. He writes that he hopes his previous letters did not worry her too much, and that he anticipates the spring will provide more promising opportunities for him to lead. He does not dwell very long on matters of war, however, and instead describes meeting Mrs. Washington. In writing how he evident it is that Mrs. Washington loves her husband madly, Lafayette finds himself thinking of Adrienne and how she cares for him. 

He pauses in his writing and struggles again to decide whether he has treated her as he ought. Lafayette’s mother and his father had, in their time with him, left to pursue what they felt they must pursue, and so it seemed only natural to him that he should do the same. He would return to Adrienne, he reminds her all the time that he will, and swears that in his absence he loves her all the same. Yet whenever he thinks of her, tries to imagine what she might be doing at any moment, he is always dismayed to realize that, no matter that she is with her family in a grand chateau, she is missing him. 

Lafayette knows too well what that feels like and regrets that he cannot do as he feels he must and prevent her that pain. The only solution to her longing would be to go back upon all his promises and return home. It was quite simple, and yet utterly impossible. Frustrated by the dilemma, Lafayette makes the only amends that he may, and finishes his letter by acknowledging, at least in part, that he needs to apologize to her. He requests Adrienne’s understanding, if she is able to give it, and asks her to kiss their daughters, Henriette, and young Anastasie (whom he has not even laid eyes upon), since it will be awhile longer before he can do it himself. 

He will send the letter first thing tomorrow, and then he will have to simply put it out of his mind. 

 

“You must tell me everything,” Lafayette declares the next day when Hamilton and Laurens finally come to call on him. He’d woken up and found himself thrust again into the life and duties of the camp. Only all the time, he heard new names or changed general orders, and hints of unknown events. “I feel that I have been exiled forever.” 

Hamilton laughs at him from where he sits on the couch across from him, drinking Lafayette’s gift of some good red wine he obtained in Albany. “My dear Marquis, there is simply too much that has transpired to give you the whole of it.” 

Laurens chimes up beside Hamilton to agree.

Lafayette frowns, “Well begin in every possible detail and I will tell you if I need less elaboration or more.” 

Hamilton sighs, but Lafayette suspects that he is not truly put out to be given the opportunity to speak to his heart’s content. Laurens, beside Hamilton, seems to be thinking the same think as he settles back against the divan as if to make himself more comfortable.

“Things did get very bad for a time,” Hamilton admits. “I would say that you could not imagine the hardships we endured here, but having wintered here with us for at least part of the season I will trust you to have an accurate imagination. For weeks we had barely enough food and fuel to keep the army from making a mutiny against us. Things were so dire that we had to choose between slaughtering horses or leaving them to starve because no acceptable forage could be found to feed them. How many would you say were killed in that one week, Laurens?”

Their friend sighs and shakes his head, “Enough to turn a man’s stomach, is all I’ll say.” 

Hamilton hums in agreement, “The General being fond of horses took this rather hard. Especially when Nelson remains safe and warm and cared for only because the General has money enough to pay for Nelson’s needs out of pocket. After that, though, he realized he had to harden his heart.” Lafayette presses his hand to his own heart, for he feels the General’s dismay as keenly as if it were his own. 

Hamilton continues, “For years he has refused to allow soldiers to simply take from the surrounding farms. He told them that they must _ask_ and give receipts for what was taken. But it came down to a choice, stick to his principles or face a hard reality.” He takes a sip of his wine, and shakes his head. “He chose the hard reality, though I know he hated to do it.”

“And through all of it Gates was intractable!” Laurens suddenly burst out. “As we watched men die of cold and illness and want for good food, Gates was in York plying Congress with lies and refusing to ever give Washington a straight answer. Did you know my father told me that Gates has been showing the letter, the very letter where he criticized the General, around Congress? He said it was to exonerate himself, but refused to send a copy to Washington.” Laurens frowned, “I don’t know that I’ve ever had a lower opinion of a man.” 

“It’s clear that all Gates was doing was drumming up support for himself,” Hamilton tells Lafayette. “Whenever he showed the letter to a delegate, he was letting that man think for a moment that he knew more that Washington did.” Hamilton turns to Laurens, smiles and shakes his shoulder, “It was very fortunate Laurens was able to convince his father to intervene.” 

Laurens pushes him away, though not with enough force to upset the wine in their glasses. “I only told him the truth plainly.”

Lafayette remembers at last to tell him, “I relied quite a bit on your father’s advice during my ordeal. I think I may have made myself a bit of a nuisance to him.”

Laurens shrugs a shoulder, not proud exactly, but not unhappy to hear good things about his father. “You could not have been worse than all the hysterical delegates he had upon his front door, or spreading rumors behind his back.”

“And then coming to him with that ridiculous pamphlet,” Hamilton adds.

“Pamphlet?” Lafayette asks. 

Laurens makes a disgusted noise at the mention of the word. “Libelous trash.”

Hamilton tips his head to the side. “Unflattering and unforgiving. It called the General out on every defeat and blamed him for every mismanagement of the army. All while refusing to believe that the role of Commander in Chief, Inspector General, and Quartermaster were not all one and the same, or that Washington could not somehow be all three of them at once. It made its rounds about Congress, and some copies were even read here among the men.”

Scoffing, Laurens says, “It called for the General’s removal from his command, but left the matter of who should fill his shoes suspiciously unsaid.”

Lafayette blows out a breath, “Agents in Congress, incendiary pamphlets, and a starving army not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt? Even knowing that the end of this tale could not possibly be so disastrous I can’t imagine how this was resolved.”

“Believe it or not, Congress is to thank for some of our salvation,” Hamilton answers. “They sent a committee here, and they were much intent on finding every fault possible with the General, of that I’m sure. When they arrived, however--”

“The General was brilliant!” Laurens finishes for him. “He had them eating out of his hand after one audience. You know how he is, he made himself very tall and grand and serious and they all fell over themselves trying to impress him. The more he failed to respond to their flattery the more they wished to be in his good graces. And then Hamilton’s report--” 

Laurens turns to look at Hamilton, who smiles and tells Lafayette, “I gave them everything as far as I could see. Every problem in need of remedy, all of the General’s frustrations, and the alterations that must be made to fix them. I had the input of every officer worth a damn, and then the General affixed his signature to it and sent it with the committee back to Congress. They gave their full support of it, having seen how terrible it truly was, how very much we were dealing with and how no one man could be blamed for the failure of a whole system.”

“And this is why that silly Board of War is no more, yes? No more orders from on high and away from the battlefield? No more perfect campaigns made of air and false promises?” Lafayette was being perhaps a tad bit childish, but he would remain bitter to the men who had almost ruined his reputation forever.

Hamilton nods, looking triumphant, “And General Greene has been made Quartermaster and, thank God, can be trusted to not be corrupt. With his hard work and perhaps a small amount of luck, we may not remain in such dire straits much longer.”

They talk a while, Lafayette wanting more detail on some concerns, such as the status of Conway’s favor in Congress and whether he might soon be gotten rid of, and Hamilton and Laurens wanting to know more about Lafayette’s time in Albany. The clock ticks steadily on, and every time they think to glance at it they are shocked by how late it has become. Finally comes that time of night when there is nothing to do but lament that it must come to an end, or risk greeting the morning together without sleep. They begin to say their goodbyes, and Hamilton and Laurens ready for the cold walk home.

“Oh!” Laurens says, suddenly. “We have not even told you of the Baron!”

“The Baron?” Lafayette asks. He cannot think of any Baron in France who would have come without Lafayette having heard of it. 

“Baron von Steuben,” Hamilton says. “A most peculiar, but still very wonderful man.” 

“You have to meet him.” Laurens swings his cloak around his shoulders and he does not bother to settle the collar of it before he turns at Lafayette and says, earnestly, “He’s doing wonderful things with the army, I think even you will be impressed by the progress.” 

Beside him Hamilton notices the ruffled collar and smiles. It’s small and fond, Hamilton’s smile, and Lafayette is not at all sure that he was meant to notice it. Hamilton reaches out, takes Laurens’s shoulder and turns his friend toward him again. He slips his fingers under the collar of the cloak and rights it. Laurens is patient as Hamilton works, looks down kindly at him when he speaks. 

“I think we ought not to oversell him, he’ll do enough of that one his own,” Hamilton says, making Laurens smile, as if it is a notion they both share. “But he is remarkable.” 

“I am sure I will be very pleased to make his acquaintance,” Lafayette says, though they seem not to be terribly concerned if he will or not. They bid him good night, and Lafayette regrets again to find himself alone when others have such perfect companions here with them. 

 

As the days pass, Lafayette begins to understand better the changes that have taken place in his absence. Baron von Steuben is apparently a recently arrived master of drills. He seems a likely candidate to replace Conway, who apparently has no interest at all in showing his face around Washington’s camp again. Hamilton and Laurens, whom Lafayette had already thought to be great friends, have reached some newer height of understanding, the likes of which Lafayette thinks it may be rude to speculate about, though he cannot help it. 

The greatest change, however, is the effect of Mrs. Washington upon her husband. Lafayette had quite fretted about leaving the General in such dire a situation as he did. After Washington had unburdened himself to him about Conway and Gates, and the frustrations of his position, Lafayette felt a sort of protectiveness for him, and one of his torments in Albany was the idea that there was no one whom Washington might speak to as he spoke to Lafayette that day. He sees now that he was wrong. Mrs. Washington may play no direct part in the machinations of the army or its officers, but it is clear her presence was a greater help to her husband than any other ally he might have. 

In little moments played out over the weeks of her stay, Lafayette sees how she draws her husband away from work and sends him back refreshed. Though they are never very frank about their affections, Lafayette notes that she never fails to take his arm when they walk together, and the General never fails to cover her small hand with his. As kind and understanding as she is, Mrs. Washington does not tolerate her husband’s blacker moods, and will not allow him to stay in them for very long. 

Lafayette is at least partly pleased by this because his lessons in magic with Washington and Hamilton now benefit from an increase in receptiveness. Whatever had been worrying the General so, whatever made him stare as if he had misgivings about every demonstration of magic, seems no longer to be troubling him. He is glad, too, just to see Washington smile more. Yet Lafayette would be lying if it misses having more of the General’s attention. When Lafayette dines with Washington, he dines as well with his wife, which is on the whole very pleasant, but it affords Lafayette no moment alone with him. He chides himself not to be greedy, and reminds himself again of Washington’s easier temper. 

All the while Lafayette struggles with patience, winter is loosening its hold upon the valley. All across the camp thoughts turn from hunkering down, to marching out. One day, Lafayette steps out of his quarters with Gimat, and finds Mrs. Washington walking along the road, picking her way through the melting snow. Her maid is with her, carrying a basket. 

He waits patiently at the side of the road to say hello to her. “Ah, Marquis,” she says, holding out her hand for him to take. “I did hope that I would come across you today.” 

He smiles. “How happy I am not to have disappointed you, madame.” 

“You still may,” she teases.”I was wondering if you would walk me back to my husband’s house.”

In truth, Lafayette does have other business that he might be attending to, but he has never had the chance to speak to her in relative private. He glances at Gimat, who nods his head back at him, willing. He offers her his arm, “But of course, madame.”

With a small smile she takes it, and they begin to walk. Gimat and her maid follow behind them. For a little while they speak only of the common pleasantries, the weather and the hope that it will continue to improve, the plight of the men and the hope that this will also improve. Finally, Mrs. Washington is quiet for a little while, and Lafayette does not disturb her as she thinks.

“I will be returning to our home very soon,” she tells him. Though her tone is serious, it is plain to see that she is looking forward to it. It occurs to Lafayette that he’s never seen her good humor flag, but it must have been something of a hardship for a great lady like herself to endure such small, sparse quarters as the little stone house the General and his staff occupy. Though she made it cheerier, it surely was not as fine a home as she had grown accustomed to.

“I don’t imagine that you had a very pleasant or elegant stay here, madame, but I am grateful that you sacrificed your happiness so that I might make your acquaintance.” 

She laughs, “It was not elegant, no, or quiet. But I find that if one is determined to be cheerful one may find a bit of happiness in almost any situation.”

“I quite agree,” Lafayette says, hearing an echo of his own thoughts in her words. “We will all regret to see you go. Although none more so than the General.”

The General’s wife sighs as she thinks of their parting. “It is not easy at all to say goodbye. Though I do wish it would not be in such poor taste to have a dance. That always raises his spirits.” 

“I did not know that you enjoyed dancing, my lady,” Lafayette says, smiling at her. How very small she must look beside her husband as he leads her.

“Oh,” she says, shaking her head. “I do not. Or rather, I have not for some time. But Mrs. Greene would take care of that. She and the General will dance for hours if they only have the venue.” 

She says it easily and not with even a hint of jealousy. Lafayette does not doubt that she has a perfect trust in her husband’s faithfulness but still it surprises him that she should think nothing of her husband enjoying the company of a very young and pretty woman. He says as much, but she laughs at him. 

“Our marriage is too long and happy for such a thing.” She sees that still he doubts her just a little, and strives to gives him a better explanation. “You must have heard him talk about Mount Vernon, surely?” 

“Yes, of course.” He thinks back sometimes to the illusion the General made for him, how very clearly the vision of home came straight from Washington’s heart.

She smiles softly, seeing that he knows her meaning. “Well then you know he loves it more than any other place on this earth.” He nods. “And yet he is here.” 

Mrs. Washington sighs, suddenly much more wistful and sad. “This summer will be three years since he has set foot across the threshold of his own home, but I’d be very foolish indeed to take this as proof he does not love Mount Vernon as wholly and as deeply as when he left it.” 

Lafayette understands her meaning perfectly, and discerns for perhaps the first time that he has only a narrow view of Washington. He has stepped into a small sliver of the General’s life, while Mrs. Washington is in a much better position to take in the whole of it. He is glad to know that there is someone that feels as if they truly know the man. 

“He’s very lucky to have such an amiable and perceptive consort.” She waves her hand at him as if this if flattery. Lafayette does not relent, “And I must say, we’ll all be sorry to see you go. I think it did everyone good to see him well-cared for. ”

“I will admit to you alone that I found him here in a very dark and lonely state when I came,” Mrs. Washington says, not shying away from the truth of this statement. She shakes her head, both sad and fond, “He will bear anything alone, no matter how heavy the burden. And there are those that will pile the burdens higher and higher without thinking.” 

Presently she stops walking and turns to him, taking both his hands. “Will you mind him for me, Marquis?” 

“Mind him, madame?” He cannot begin to know what to make of such a request.

Mrs. Washington smiles and squeezes his hands with a look of affection that he cannot help but see as maternal. It is an experience unfortunately so unfamiliar to Lafayette that it gives him a sharp little twist in his chest. She explains, “I would worry less about him, dear boy, if I knew that there is someone who cares for him and who wishes to see him set his burdens down from time to time. I feel right in placing my trust in you, because I think more than anyone else here you see that, however great a one he may be, he is just a man.” 

Lafayette looks down at his feet first, quite bashful to learn he has been obvious. He has not been shy of stating his affection for Washington, but he hopes always that it comes across as the same sort of affection of any of the General’s young protégés. Mrs. Washington does not seem inclined to allow him the fiction, though Lafayette feels quite exposed he makes himself look up finally to study Martha’s kind face. She has a small smile and not a bit of doubt at all anywhere in her expression. 

When he does not speak, she presses him gently on the matter. “Do I ask too much of too young a soul? You need only say.”

What can Lafayette do? Only say, “Of course not, madam. I will take every care of him I can until you return.” Then he blushes, wondering if he did not overstate himself a bit.

But Mrs. Washington looks genuinely pleased. “Wonderful!” she says. “I did think I could I count on you.”

They begin walking again, and though Lafayette makes every attempt to respond appropriately as Mrs. Washington’s conversation prompts him to, his mind is quite preoccupied with the meaning of her request. Several times a question comes to mind, and he very nearly asks it, but each time he thinks the better of it. Her unsought blessing, her unasked for permission, is a gift, and it is impolite to question the nature of a gift, to wonder about the motives of the one who gave it. 

It is more than enough to simply receive it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, that was probably very boring. Thank you for reading.


	7. The Baron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette meets the Baron and considers what it means to take care of a General.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, I never meant to take such a long break from this fic, but sometimes you end up struggling for weeks on the simplest scene and then an election happens and you get derailed. But here it is, squeaking in under the line for the year. I also have to apologize because the plot did not progress as quickly as I had hoped. MORE SLOW BURN. SOON folks. Soon.
> 
> As always, I need to thank [Ossapher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ossapher/pseuds/ossapher) for being a wonderful beta. I kind of rushed this to print so if there are typos, please feel free to point them out. Just message me or send me an ask on [tumblr.](http://fickleobsessions.tumbr.com)

On a chilly morning in early April Lafayette finally makes good on his promise to Hamilton and Laurens and meets the man that the entire camp has taken to calling the Baron (much to Baron de Kalb’s quiet consternation). Though Lafayette has heard much about Von Steuben from almost every American whom he has the pleasure of reacquainting himself with after returning to Valley Forge, their paths have not yet crossed. The evening before Hamilton and Laurens, determined not to let the introduction be put off any longer, had suggested that Lafayette observe the Baron as he led his experimental regiments through their morning exercises and marches. 

“You’ll want to see the whole show,” Hamilton told him, Laurens nodding beside him. 

So bidden by his friends, Lafayette now stands at the edge of Valley Forge’s rather dreary parade grounds at half past eight in the morning, chatting with Hamilton and Laurens who both managed to sneak away from the General’s correspondence to join him. 

Across the way a group of some eighty soldiers are loitering and glancing over at them with barely disguised interest. Lafayette has lately come to learn that he is the subject of many opinions among the Americans, and not all of them favorable. Lafayette would be more hurt by this if it did not seem to have more to do with his being French, and less with his character.

There have even been a few burnings of the pope in effigy lately, both in the nearby towns and even here in camp, or so he is told. The burnings are apparently meant to affirm the staunch Protestantism of those cheering the burning, but if doing so offends the Catholic sensibilities of the French officers this does not bother them in the slightest. Washington’s apology to Lafayette for the behavior of his men had been so sincere that Lafayette did not quite have the heart to tell Washington that he is not the sort of person to take insults to the pope very much to heart. 

Even setting aside the respect due or not due to the pope, however, it is still distressing that there are many Americans who think of themselves as so inherently British as to carry on the old disharmony between their countries. He knows that the Americans have only lately begun to think of themselves as distinct from other subjects of the British crown, but Lafayette wishes he could explain that he would hardly be here if he thought of Americans as British. Unfortunately he does not know how to explain this without accidentally insulting them, or their forefathers at the very least. 

“Ah,” Hamilton says suddenly as he points across the grounds. “There he is.” 

Lafayette turns to see a figure approaching on horseback followed by a small retinue of aides and other staff a length behind him. Lafayette watches Von Steuben’s approach with interest, and he cannot deny the man makes an impression. Von Steuben sits very straight and proper in his saddle with his cloak thrown over his shoulder to display a large, eye-catching jeweled star on the breast of his jacket. He has a tidy appearance, a mature countenance, and an undeniably martial air. 

The Continental soldiers notice Von Steuben’s approach at about the same time as Lafayette and his friends. Previously content to mill about while looking as rough and unpolished as Lafayette was accustomed to seeing them they now leap into action and begin to line themselves up in perfect rows. Even though they are all wearing different coats and breeches, along with boots and shoes of every make, their bearing seems instantly more soldierly. 

Lafayette is even more shocked when the Baron begins to run the men through drills he recognizes as being from the army manuals of Frederick the Great. For some long minutes the men practice what has clearly already been taught to them, and they do it splendidly. Sharp and smart, they march in time, turn with the whole regiment as one, and go through the motions of loading their weapons in unison and on command. 

Beside Lafayette Hamilton watches this display with his arms crossed over his chest and a small smile on his lips. Laurens rests against the wide trunk of a tree, and watches with attention just a little less rapt, yet the two of them both lean forward with much interest when it comes time for Von Steuben to teach the soldiers something new. Lafayette wonders if they are merely interested in learning some new maneuver, but then the American soldiers fail to perform what the Baron has asked. 

At the first sign of disarray among the soldiers, the Baron begins to swear, and does so in every language he has available to him to use. Hamilton and Laurens stifle their laughter with their fists at the Baron’s impressive creativity. Lafayette finds himself hoping desperately that none of the men can understand a word of French or Prussian because the Baron calls them (without the slightest bit of fear) the idiot sons of whores and pimples on the ass of a beggar. If anyone but the Baron, his aides, and the trio assembled under the tree understand the Baron’s shouted abuse, they do not appear to be offended by such comments. Lafayette thinks the only word the soldiers understand must the Baron’s sole curse spoken in English: goddamn.

His method of teaching could hardly have been effective if all the Baron did was shout in foreign tongues, but almost immediately Von Steuben is off his horse and striding up and down the line. All the while he is swearing the Baron is also arranging the men to his liking. Two of his aides follow behind him and offer his instructions to the soldiers in English. 

“You say this man is a baron?” Lafayette finally asks. 

Hamilton shrugs broadly at his question. “He is more a baron than I.” He tips his head at Lafayette, “Though I think not at as much a baron as you are a marquis.” 

Lafayette raises his eyebrows at his friend, he certainly hopes he makes a more convincing noble than this man. 

“What he is,” Laurens interjects, “is effective. I’ve never seen our soldiers actually _look_ like soldiers, but come this summer we might have a real chance of accomplishing something.”

Lafayette hopes for that even more. It is nearly a year since he left France for America, and so far the only military glory he has received is a bullet in his leg while in retreat, and a part in a successful skirmish but a failed invasion. With soldiers who are well enough supplied and prepared to actually understand and follow orders, Lafayette might be able to let himself believe he will soon see something like a proper victory.

They watch for a while longer as Von Steuben attempts to get the soldiers moving precisely as he would like them. He shouts until he is red in the face, and several times the men actually laugh at him, but Von Steuben does not seem bothered. He only laughs along with them, and corrects them again. Lafayette must admit that if nothing else Von Steuben shows a clear dedication to and honest zeal for his task. It’s an admirable quality, especially when Lafayette finds that after the debacle in Albany many of his French comrades seem more inclined to complain about the poor food and poorer roads than to actually do anything to improve the state of the army to which they have volunteered to serve and to lead.

Soon either the time allotted for the exercises or Von Steuben’s patience runs out and the men are dismissed. The Baron speaks for a moment with his aides, and they alert him at last of the presence of his audience. 

Von Stueben promptly strides over to where Lafayette and his friends are watching. As he approaches, he says in a booming French, “Marquis de Lafayette, what an honor and a pleasure. Now shall we greet each other in the manner of soldiers from the Continent with a bow, or as Continental soldiers with a handshake?”

Lafayette smiles and extends his hand. “ _Á l'américaine,_ I think.” 

“Ah, they are making a true Republican out of you, I see,” Von Steuben says, taking it. The gesture is not quite as free from affectation as when the Americans do it, for the Baron takes pains to be graceful and his hand is quite gentle.

Up close Lafayette can see that Von Steuben is a tall man, nearly of a height to Lafayette and likely only an inch or two shorter than General Washington. Lafayette thinks that he is probably about the General’s age, too. Despite the similarities in maturity and stature, Von Steuben seems to have none of Washington’s calm and sober gravity. Almost everything about his manner seems quite airy and light. 

Once he has taken back his hand, and Hamilton and Laurens have offered their own greeting, Lafayette says, “It is very impressive work you are doing, sir.” 

“Yes,” the Baron agrees, apparently not feeling that it was necessary to be humble. “I hope that you will not mind me speaking frankly, but when I came here a better part of this army seemed determined to act as pigs in shit.”

If Von Steuben truly is a noble, he is unlike any that Lafayette has ever met in his time. Hamilton laughs at the Baron’s swearing, delighted. “And yet you make silk purses from these sow’s ears,” he teases.

The Baron’s eyebrows raise playfully in bewilderment, “Silk purses, dear Monsieur Hamilton? I wouldn’t know anything about silk purses. You will have to make do with soldiers.” 

Lafayette begins to see why Hamilton and Laurens have been so taken with this strange character. Von Steuben is amiable, amusing, and if he is intimidated by Lafayette’s presence or if he has any worry that perhaps the tall tales of his origins will be cut down to a more truthful size by Lafayette’s knowledge of European royal courts, he does not show it. 

“General Washington spoke to me of your service to him with the very highest praise,” Von Steuben says to Lafayette; he smiles kindly when Lafayette cannot help to blush. “Now that I have the great pleasure of making your acquaintance I will have to take every inspiration from you that I can, seeing how you are one of the very few foreign volunteers as yet to deserve his unmitigated praise.” 

“I’m sure I’ve done nothing so very useful as what you have accomplished in barely a month’s time.” 

The Baron looks to Laurens and Hamilton as if to confirm that they are hearing the same words he is. He shakes his head at them, and tells Lafayette, “I think you underestimate how very much a commander benefits from the loyalty and affection of his soldiers.” 

Lafayette glances at Hamilton and Laurens who seem to have little reaction to this comment; still, he is not quite sure how to respond. Taking advantage of the pause in the conversation, a young man with dark hair and quite a lovely complexion appears at the Baron’s elbow. He puts his hand on the Baron’s arm and says something to him in a low tone. 

“Ah,” Von Steuben says, covering the young man’s hand before he can remove it. “Yes, I did forget. Bless you, my dear Pierre, for having a mind for details.”

The young man smiles and Von Steuben pats the back of his hand in a gesture Lafayette has seen repeated many times in his life, most often by married couples. Before Lafayette can react to this revelation, Pierre has pulled hand gently out from beneath the Baron’s, and the Baron is speaking to them again. “Gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I am reminded that there is still more for me to do this morning.” 

Lafayette lets manners take the lead, and says a polite goodbye to the Baron. When Von Steuben has mounted his horse and started down the road, Laurens turns to Lafayette. “Well, what did you think of our unusual Baron?” 

“He is not what I expected,” he admits. “But I do not dislike the surprise.” His friends nod their heads at his response, pleased with it. 

As he reviews their conversation in his mind, Lafayette cannot help but mention, “I did notice a bit of familiarity between the Baron and his…”

“Secretary,” Hamilton supplies, looking a bit mirthful. “Monsieur Pierre Etienne Du Ponceau. I’m told he is not quite eighteen, but he was fond enough of both the Baron and adventure that he made the crossing with him.” 

“I’m not sure Du Ponceau needed much convincing, given the way he dotes on the Baron,” Laurens says. A moment later he adds, as if it an afterthought, “And how the Baron dotes upon him.”

“Von Steuben dotes upon quite a few people,” Hamilton retorts. Lafayette gets the feeling he has missed quite a bit of gossip while he was in Albany.

“Is this-” Lafayette starts to ask but he struggles to find the right words, feeling a bit out of his depth with his American friends. 

He’d been told so many different things about American attitudes and mores, that they were quite prudish, that they were shockingly bawdy, that they despised any implication of femininity in a man, that in some remote places comely women were so rare that feminine men were prized. Upon his arrival back in camp, Lafayette had also heard some gossip about an incident that occurred in his absence, a lieutenant had been sent away in shame, accused of sodomy. Lafayette had thought upon learning this that it put the matter to some final answer. 

Yet Laurens and Hamilton are joking as if it were not at all a serious matter. They look at Lafayette, waiting patiently for him to finish his question. 

“Is this not a problem?” Lafayette asks finally. “I was told there was a certain incident here while I was Albany.”

Laurens looks back at him, clearly confused, but Hamilton, after a moment of thought, seems to understand. “Ah,” he says, though without much joy for having solved the riddle of Lafayette’s reference. “You must mean the lieutenant that was drummed out.”

Beside Hamilton Laurens frowns, and Lafayette feels a twinge of regret for bringing up something that might make them think he is at all suspicious or disapproving of their closeness. “I know very little of the circumstances,” Lafayette leaps to explain. “Only that it occurred and that it came by the General’s orders.”

Lafayette had asked after the orders specifically, in fact, and not been much pleased with the answer. He knows very well that the General believes in a firm hand, but it was so public a punishment for something so private. Hamilton’s brow furrows at the mention of Washington, and Lafayette feels a slight tremor of fear of what more he may be told about the General’s reaction. 

“I think he would rather have ignored the whole affair if you ask me, but there were those who were pressing the matter.” Hamilton shakes his head as if trying to dismiss the whole matter at hand. “There was some rather sordid gossip that the young man found with Enslin was being forced. I’m not sure that was ever proven one way or the other, but it’s irrefutable that Enslin, a lieutenant, was involved with a subordinate." Hamilton shrugs, "Washington could not abide the impropriety.” 

Lafayette glances over to Laurens and finds him looking down at the ground with a sort of carefully neutral expression. “Von Steuben’s staff is his own, and they came under their own arrangements,” Laurens says as he looks up at Lafayette, meets his eye calmly and firmly. “I don’t think the General believes it to be his business, or anyone’s. In fact, I am to make sure that nothing about Von Steuben gets told to Congress that we would not wish them to be told. As long as his work is above reproach, the General has made it clear that the work will be the sole content of the reports we send back to Congress.” 

“I am glad,” Lafayette says, trying to make sure that his friends understand that he truly is. “I think it would be a silly thing to make a fuss over.” 

“Indeed,” Hamilton says, pronouncing the matter closed with this agreement. “And at any rate, even if there was a fuss to be made, the General might regret losing some of his most entertaining dinner guests. He has the Baron and his staff dine with him once a week at the very least, sometimes more.” 

Lafayette takes this new bit of information as food for thought. 

 

Very soon indeed Lafayette has the opportunity to dine with the General, Von Steuben, and his staff for the next day Lafayette receives a note asking for his presence at dinner from the General. There is a line in the note saying that in particular Mrs. Washington would be pleased to have him. Lafayette of course agrees.

Mrs. Washington, having extracted Lafayette’s promise to mind her husband in her absence, had not rushed to leave. She will remain with her husband in their little stone house, she says, until she has every assurance that the roads will be clear of the snow, and the river crossings between her and Mount Vernon all reasonably safe.

Mrs. Washington’s demeanor is unchanged after their conversation; she is just as pleasant and friendly as ever. The evening at the General’s headquarters is pleasant, the table spread with much finer food since her arrival thanks both to better supplies and a touch of her practiced ingenuity. Washington sits at the head of the table, looking as relaxed as his perfected posture can allow, and beside her husband Mrs. Washington laughs and smiles often, encouraging friendliness among all the guests. 

As is his custom, Washington has a young aide join him at his dinner table, Tilghman this time, and over the course of the meal Mrs. Washington pays him special attention. She has, since her arrival, showered kindness upon any of her husband’s aides that will stand still for it. Of all them, Hamilton slips away from her most often, although always with extremely polite reasons. Lafayette imagines his friend must be overwhelmed and unused to such attentions. There are others that only seem happy to press into any vacancy left by Hamilton, young men far away from their families who find themselves comforted by her doting. 

Tilghman seems to be one of just that sort and during dinner she asks after his health, his family, his sweetheart, and he answers readily. She chides him to be careful with all of them, to continue to wear a scarf though weather is getting warmer, to write home often, to not tease young ladies nor to allow the young ladies to tease him too much. 

Lafayette, most likely by virtue of being married, but perhaps because he technically outranks Mrs. Washington’s place in society, is not treated to this same sort of motherly attention. Mrs. Washington asks him about his wife, his home, and listens to his answers with interest, but provides not much advice. Lafayette both regrets and does not regret that he is handled differently. He tells himself that, longing as he does to be seen as a capable commander, it would be foolish to wish to be treated as a mere boy. 

He sets his heart instead on connecting with Washington as deeply as they had before Albany. It will not happen during dinner, Lafayette knows, Washington always devotes his mealtime almost entirely to listening to others, so he waits and listens as well. He is well-entertained: Mrs. Washington’s attention to guests of any and all statures encourages everyone to speak and results in a very lively discussion. Even young Du Ponceau, sitting at Baron Von Steuben’s left side, chimes in from time to time. It’s a welcome measure of equality until the young man accidentally puts his foot in it. 

“I was told that General Conway was in your service,” Du Ponceau says in lightly accented English. “I could scarcely believe it, did you know he tutored me in English when I was a boy?”

Had it been any other officer in the American army, such a bit of trivia would no doubt be the perfect addition to a dinner conversation, but instead of noises of interest or questions for further detail from the other guests, there is a rather awkward silence. Du Ponceau senses the change in the room immediately and turns his head from side to side seeking some clue as to his error. 

Lafayette, feeling an intense empathy as he always does for one who is embarrassed in front of others, takes pity on him. In quiet French he explains Du Ponceau that Conway is not terribly popular among present company. Immediately the young man looks mortified. 

“I did not know,” he says, also in French, cheeks flushing an even deeper pink than their usual blush. 

“If you wished to send General Conway a letter,” Washington says in a carefully neutral tone, “I am sure my staff could help you do so.” 

Du Ponceau shakes his head very emphatically to decline. “Thank you very much, sir. However, I do not think there would be very much to say. I have not seen or spoken to him in many years.” 

From the end of the table Washington gives Du Ponceau a small smile, pleased that his conciliatory gesture received the response he most preferred. Du Ponceau, perhaps having learned as a regular guest at the General’s dinner table that such smiles are quite rare, has his embarrassment instantly dispelled by it. Though it’s hardly charitable, Lafayette finds the way the young man beams back at Washington to be rather too familiar and even irksome. He resolves to chide Du Ponceau gently about American social sensibilities in private. 

For now, however, the conversation moves on to talk of the news coming from the French gazettes and Lafayette is distracted from Du Ponceau as he is begged for any insight he may have on the mind of the king. 

After dinner, as is their habit, the men retire to one room for a drink and an opportunity to speak of the war in frank terms, while Mrs. Washington, this time joined only by Mrs. Knox and Mrs. Greene, retires to another to enjoy cordial and an opportunity to speak of the men in frank terms. Lafayette is taken into conversation by General Greene and is pleased to talk as they often do of strategies. Greene has a great passion for such matters, and has lately been frustrated by his appointment as Quartermaster General. He longs very much to be free of the job after enacting his reforms so that he may resume command of the men in the field in the summer. He has been dreaming up almost as many potential plans as Lafayette.

Lafayette is quite engrossed in their conversation until he notices, just in the corner of his eye, that the young Du Ponceau is talking to Washington. Curious, Lafayette turns to look at them more carefully, and he finds Du Ponceau leaning forward, friendly and interested, as they talk over some subject, though Lafayette could hardly guess what the two would have in common. 

He watches them, half-listening to Greene and nodding when appropriate, but then Du Ponceau is so bold as to reach out and touch his fingers very lightly Washington’s arm and Lafayette can hear not one word being spoken in the room. Du Ponceau’s fingers rest upon Washington’s blue and buff sleeve only for a moment, for the General leans back, slipping out from under them as he turns away gracefully and gestures to the Baron to join them. 

The Baron steps beside Du Ponceau, making some comment that Lafayette cannot hear, but it makes all assembled chuckle at him. Du Ponceau’s attention seems to shift easily from Washington to Von Steuben, and in no time he is standing close enough to his employer that their elbows are brushing. 

Relieved Lafayette, turns back to his conversation with Greene, only to find the other man has gone quiet. “Forgive me,” Lafayette says, embarrassed. “My mind must have wandered.” He lifts his glass as if to account for it.

“Of course,” Greene does not appear offended, but neither does he pick up where he left off. Instead he gently excuses himself, and Lafayette does not seek any immediate replacement for his company. 

Something about the little scene Lafayette watched has unsettled him. It was not Du Ponceau’s behavior-- flattering older men seemed to be something the boy did naturally-- but the sight of Du Ponceau reaching toward Washington struck Lafayette as quite familiar. The few times that he and Washington have touched it has always been initiated by Lafayette’s. The sole exception he can recall, Washington’s inspection of the wound Lafayette received at Brandywine, had ended quite promptly when Washington realized the effect it was having on Lafayette. 

Lafayette feels a cold bit of misery settle in his stomach when he considers whether he has been as grasping as Du Ponceau. Had he missed some cue that would reveal that Washington was only tolerating them? Lafayette sips from his glass and ponders the question, but the brandy does nothing to warm him. 

A short while later Lafayette is still quite lost in thought when Mrs. Washington and the other wives rejoin them in the parlor. He is startled from his contemplation when his arm taken by the General’s petite consort. “My dear Marquis,” she says, warmly. “Where have you gone off to? Did your thoughts return home?”

Mrs. Washington does not even wait for his response, but begins to pull him gently back to the center of the room. “My dear, you let our poor marquis become unmoored,” she says in greeting. “I found him quite adrift when I came in.” 

When she is within an arm’s reach of husband, she switches between them, tucking herself into the space Washington naturally makes for her. The General looks at Lafayette curiously, not quite understanding his wife’s teasing. 

Lafayette smiles at him with a hint of embarrassment. “Your very amiable lady found me lost in thought and felt it necessary to rescue me.” 

With a certain fond recognition, Washington nods at him. “Ah, that is a persistent habit of hers. She can’t abide seeing someone at a gathering unpaired.” 

Beside her husband, Mrs. Washington makes no attempt to defend herself. Lafayette briefly wonders if he has not misunderstood some double meaning to his promise to Mrs. Washington to mind her husband in her after she leaves. Perhaps it was a suggestion more maternal in intention; perhaps she worried that Lafayette, being young and foreign, would be too often alone. Asking Lafayette to mind her husband when what she really means is for her husband to mind Lafayette seems unnecessarily circuitous but Lafayette, already unsettled by the moment with Du Ponceau, finds himself almost believing it. 

But then Washington is speaking to him, “Hamilton told me you saw the regiments engaging in their drills with the Baron. How did you find them?” 

“It was marvelous, sir. Most encouraging,” Lafayette answers, pushing it all aside so that he might enjoy at least a little of his time with the General.

 

For a few days these insecurities linger, and Lafayette finds himself becoming a keen observer of every interaction he and others have with the General. Du Ponceau i s only ever correct and polite to Washington after that night. The young aide is clearly delighted by any chance at all to speak to the General, but the opportunities are rare, and Washington’s attentions are almost always quickly redirected. 

Lafayette dares to conduct a sort of scientific experiment and twice in conversation he reaches out to place his hand up on the General’s sleeve and twice Washington only gives him closer attention. Washington does not, however, ever seem inclined to return the favor, no matter how closely Lafayette might stand to him. Still, Lafayette is comforted that he has not constructed a false intimacy between them. Whatever Washington’s inclinations or notions of the friendship, Lafayette is grateful to think that Washington finds nothing untoward in it.

There does remain a concern that Mrs. Washington’s requests meant to a good deal more about making sure Lafayette was seen to rather than her husband. However, just a few weeks later, as April comes to an end, Lafayette learns that the esteemed Lady Washington has left to return to Mount Vernon, and that she did so in relative quiet and near perfect privacy. What the General and Mrs. Washington said to each other in parting and how they took leave of each other is not known to Lafayette, and is perhaps not known to anyone but themselves. 

Lafayette is told of Mrs. Washington’s departure by Hamilton, who shares the news as a warning. 

“He will very likely be in a foul mood when next you see him,” his friend says, and he seems to himself be suffering from a bit of the black humors himself. “I’ve already warned Laurens to avoid being the man to give anything like bad news or an ill opinion. After Mrs. Washington went home the last time the General spent weeks without patience, and with hardly any sympathy.” 

Lafayette smiles at his friends sour assessment. “You take a very hard view of what seems rather natural. Wouldn’t you find yourself unhappy at the loss of a companion?” 

Hamilton raised his eyebrows a bit at the question, “No doubt I would, but there aren’t many people who would be forced to remain completely silent while I vented my spleen.”

Lafayette cannot argue that point, but at any rate his thoughts have turned elsewhere. Hamilton’s warning seems to confirm that Washington, now bereft of a companion and being given a wide berth by his aides, will have a true need for being minded. It seems quite apparent that now, during this unpleasant time when Washington had previously had to adjust to a sudden loneliness, will be his first challenge. Lafayette resolves to help the General through the loss. 

Intending to meet this challenge with his usual dedication (his mind is already turning over a dozen possible plans) Lafayette says, “Perhaps this time it will not be so bad.”

Hamilton snorts at him, hardly convinced. “I should think he’ll be even more difficult this year, given the circumstances he is dealing with now.”

Lafayette, filled with a sudden impatience to fulfill his promise to Mrs. Washington though he hardly has an idea of precisely how he shall do it, pays him no mind. 

 

Shortly afterward, in thinking over his promise to Mrs. Washington, Lafayette comes to the conclusion that one of the chief ways she helps her husband is to insist he take part in things that were not work. After her arrival, dinners became more enjoyable affairs, and the General was obliged to walk with her sometimes when the weather was fair, and she talked almost always of things not at all related to war: friends, family, their home. Lafayette has an idea to do the same for the General, but he has found Washington is not an easy man to persuade away from his work. 

Thus, rather than waiting for a spontaneous opportunity, Lafayette begs the General for a bit of his time. It’s a precious commodity for Washington, time, as almost all of his hours are accounted for from morning until night, but he agrees, sending a short note with a suitable time for the appointment. He makes sure to be punctual, and he’s greeted by an even wearier Washington than he has seen before. 

“Marquis,” he says to Lafayette as he enters the room, and Washington sounds hardly enthused. He gestures to a chair positioned near where he sits. “What did you need?”

Lafayette tugs the chair just a bit closer to Washington before he settles into it. “We have, as of late, been so often pulled in different directions, sir, that I felt I ought to re-acquaint myself with your progress in magic.” 

Washington seems confused by this such a premise for a private conversation. With a furrow in his brow, he points out, “Our lessons in the subject have continued since your arrival.” 

Lafayette waves his hand dismissively. “The forty-five minutes every other day your Excellency has generously allotted to magic unfortunately gives me only the chance to try and teach you and Hamilton something new. I find we rarely re-visit what we have learned.” 

Washington sighs a bit heavily, but does not argue that this is not the case. “And so you propose a review?” 

“I propose a game,” Lafayette says grinning as Washington looks at him in surprise. “One that will require us to build upon a piece of magic again and again.”

The General reclines against the back of his chair, skeptical. “It seems to me that you might have rather an unfair advantage as your knowledge of magic is far more extensive than my own.” 

Lafayette tips his head to one side in a gesture he is sure does not quite seem humble. “Well, we only need one rule to fix that, dear General. I simply will not use anything that we have not gone over together.” 

Washington considers the fairness of the rule and does not seem to find any any fault. “Ought we invite Hamilton in?” he asks instead. “So that he might get the same benefit?”

“No,” Lafayette says as lightly possible. Quickly, he scrambles for a reason to keep their audience private, “Hamilton is rather… competitive, and I’m sure you’ve noticed that it makes his magic a bit unbridled.”

Washington shifts in his chair, as if uncomfortable. He neither confirms nor denies the obvious about Hamilton’s magic, but he raises no argument. 

“He and I shall work separately on a game of focus,” Lafayette promises, a gentle nudge he hopes will help Washington to agree to his proposal.

“Very well,” Washington says, accepting it. “How does one play this game of yours?” 

Lafayette smiles, relieved. “It’s quite simple. As I said, we layer magic, build one piece upon the other, until it cannot be sustained.”

Washington nods along at first, then is struck with a thought. “Must it be a different type each time?” 

Lafayette shakes his head, “Not at all. Creativity in your choice of magic will of course make for a more interesting game, but there will be time when necessity calls for using the same piece of magic in a new way. Shall we start?” 

“Very well,” Washington says, sitting back in his chair. He gestures to Lafayette, “If you would do the honors of starting.” 

Lafayette is not surprised that Washington wished to observe him first before trying anything himself. He looks around the room for a likely starting point and sees a sheet of paper discarded on the table. Remembering a favorite theme of the game from when he played it as a child, Lafayette takes the sheet and begins to fold it into a simple paper boat. Finished, Lafayette looks up to find that Washington has been watching him. With a small smile, Lafayette casts an illusion to make the paper boat look more like a proper ship though it still remains a pale cream color. 

Washington picks it up the little paper boat, and holds it in his open palm for a moment regarding the illusion. Lafayette made it look like a warship, with three masts, a proud prow and a working tiller and when Washington he moves away his hand the boat remains suspended in midair. It then begins to sail through the air a lazy circle. 

Lafayette smiles, enjoying the effect for a moment before he sets himself to figure out how he might build upon. Finally he remembers that the General and he worked on ink magics together, so he stands and crosses over to Washington’s desk. He picks up the ink quill and taps the quill tip gently until there is just a few drops of ink suspended at the the point of the nib. 

Turning back to Washington, he asks, “If you would be so kind?” From his seat the General gives him a questioning look. “If I chase our little ship around I might drop ink upon your carpets,” he points out.

Washington nods and smoothly and silently the little ship comes sailing over to Lafayette. It then hovers in place as Lafayette places a drop in three different places upon the ship’s true paper form. With the application of magic each dot of ink becomes a simple sketch of a sailor. In just two dimensions, they set themselves to work, climbing the mast, swabbing the deck, and coiling rope. They will repeat their motions for as long as Lafayette can hold his concentration. He returns the quill to the desk and awaits Washington’s next contribution. 

Never one to make snap decisions, Washington patiently considers his move as he watches the ink men working upon their paper ship flying through the air. After a short while Washington stands and goes to the bureau where he would ready himself in the morning, and plucks from a drawer a black ribbon. At once it begins slither out of his hands and up into the air, a moment later an illusion is cast and the ribbon becomes a sea serpent of the sort one would see curled in the corner of a nautical map. 

The sea monster ribbon begins to stalk the little ship and the first thing that comes to Lafayette’s mind is that his little ink sailors will need to be able to defend themselves. Already thinking of a plan he looks around the room for some likely item and spies a small container of tapers near the fire. 

The General himself does not smoke, but he likes for those who do to feel they have been accommodated. Candles being in short supply, and paper being just as dear, the little vase near the fireplace has only sturdy stalks of straw, but it will be enough. Lafayette takes a piece and breaks it in two. He lights the end of each and then blows it quickly out. With a little added warmth from his magic, and ember continues to burn at the singed tip of the straw. 

Chasing the boat again, he places the unburnt ends in the folds of the paper, facing forward. With an illusion, they become cannons, with real smoke wafting up from the end of their barrels. 

Washington looks curious, but then the sea serpent comes near to the ship and Lafayette taps his hand against his thigh. The cannons let out a puff of smoke and a small burst of flame as if they are firing upon their foe. 

“Goodness,” Washington says, startled. “Surely it will catch fire.” 

“I assure you I have a perfect control,” Lafayette promises.

Washington is apparently not convinced because with a push of his will, he begins to steer the little paper ship towards a pitcher of water on a far table. Lafayette cannot help but pout that his clever trick will be doused. He pushes his own will against Washington’s and the ship begins to spin in the air, as if caught in a whirlpool. 

“Really, sir, it will be all right!” 

Washington shakes his head, and exerts an even greater amount of force in response. “I know enough about children’s games to know how often they end with the rug being spoiled.” 

Lafayette refuses to yield though and, in what is perhaps an unsportsmanlike move (but Lafayette does truly wish to save his cannons!), puts himself right between Washington and the ship. Without a clear picture of the position of the ship in the air Washington’s attempts to control it weaken, and Lafayette is finally able to safely steer it further away from the pitcher of water threatening to douse them. 

He is not however, expecting Washington to move on to the simplest solution. Washington stands up and begins to walk toward the ship, and does so in a manner that very clearly conveys that he intends to simply pluck the ship from the air. 

“Ah,” Lafayette says, trying to intercept him. “Now that is hardly fair, sir. This is a magical game after all.” 

If Washington were perhaps any other man Lafayette would describe what happens next as a tussle, but that word is hardly dignified enough to describe the actions of a man such as the General. They heartily disagree, perhaps, about the fate of Lafayette’s trick, and they are both tall men, with arms long enough that they are rather used to being able to keep things out of reach of others when they wanted to. It comes as a bit of a surprise to each of them that they are able to snatch the paper boat back and forth from each other. 

The seriousness of Lafayette’s intentions to save the cannons soon gives way to mirth. The ink sailors on the paper again become just blots upon a simple paper boat, and the embers at the end of the straw goes out. Washington’s concentration is abandoned just as quickly, the sea serpent drops to the floor, a ribbon once more, and the paper boat is again obliged to obey the law of gravity. They are soon rather tangled, Washington and Lafayette, and the boat is very well crushed in between their two palms. 

Laughing at their mistake, Lafayette looks up at Washington and realizes quite suddenly how very close they are. Much as it did when Washington held Lafayette’s calf in his hands all those many months ago, Lafayette’s breath leaves his chest entirely. 

It seems a perfect moment for something to happen, and Lafayette does not have his heart set on any particular thing. He would like it very much even if Washington only cupped his cheek fondly, held him near for a little while, and felt for a moment the sort of warmth and cheer he and Lafayette have the opportunity to share if only Washington would look to him to provide it. And if Washington were to choose another path, one ending with his lips pressed against Lafayette’s own, that would be very fine indeed.

The intensity of Washington’s gaze at it looks upon his face seems to indicate that the latter was the likely choice. Lafayette says nothing at all this time, for fear of breaking the spell, but nothing happens. Washington releases him, and steps away. 

Washington places the crushed paper boat upon the table. “I’m not sure there is any point in naming a winner.” 

Lafayette, still rooted to the same spot and catching his breath, half-heartedly agrees. “I suppose you are right.” He hardly cares, mind whirling as he wonders why had the General pulled away. 

When Washington does not speak again, Lafayette tries to defend the experiment. “Though I think it was good practice. Your control of both the illusion and the motion was superb.” He looks up at Washington, and gauges his reaction carefully as he says, “We ought to try it again.” 

Washington hesitates visibly, but he does nod. “If you think it helpful, there are worse ways to spend a bit of time.” He bends smoothly down and picks up the ribbon from the floor, and begins to wrap it around two fingers so that he may put it away. “I think that will be enough for today, however.” 

“Of course. I’ll take my leave of you now. Let you return to your work.” 

Washington favors him with a smile, but it is small, tight, far from the relaxed expression Lafayette had hoped to achieve with the game. 

As Lafayette leaves, his insecurities rise again. After his successful little experiments in placing his hand upon Washington’s sleeve, after reminding himself of the times in which his closeness to the General had been proven, Lafayette was quite convinced that given the opportunity again Washington would at last close the gap. He had decided the incident involving the inspection of the wound had merely been an example of prudence and caution on Washington’s part. Surely now, he had thought, it was well enough established that Lafayette would be more than receptive.

It’s a miserable thought, thinking that Lafayette’s affection is of a sort that Washington will not or cannot return. It tortures him throughout the rest of the day, and his one source of comfort is remembering the sense of anticipation in each instance. Lafayette recalls again the pause each time before Washington slipped away, and the feeling that Washington was just on the edge of pressing forward. Something must occur in that pause which compels Washington to do the opposite, but what Lafayette does not know, and cannot guess. Lafayette has never been able to dwell long in ambiguity, he must find out. 

 

Days pass as they tend to do in the camp: in either a flurry of activity and consultation or in stark boredom. Through it all Lafayette continues to ponder Washington’s behavior and his potential inclinations and begins to form his theories. It becomes a handy way to pass the time, and all around him are examples of the closeness enjoyed by other sets of men with less obstacles between them. 

Von Steuben, for instance, is rarely without one aide or another, and they indulge him all his wry remarks, bursts of temper, and fawning affection. He does not make a show of himself precisely, but he seems to forget any audience when his emotions run high. As yet, Lafayette has seen nothing like this with Washington. Without fail, the General is warmer to him, stands closer, smiles more, when they are alone. If they are among others, Washington is completely contained, and any fondness he chooses to display comes from a distance. Lafayette has to think that is significant, but he does not know in precisely what way. 

Laurens and Hamilton, who were thick as thieves even before Lafayette left for Albany, are now nearly a set of twins. If you had the chance to see one without the other, it is most often because he is on their way to find his lost mate. Once together they are unfailingly lost in conversation, and are only quiet when working, or one or the other has fallen asleep. Unsurprisingly Hamilton has the most words to offer on any subject, but Laurens listens and chimes in with enough insight or argument to keep him going. On those rare occasions that Laurens has many thoughts to unburden, Hamilton watches him do so with naked fascination. 

That free and easy exchange is something Lafayette just cannot quite achieve with Washington though he tries. The General enjoys his silences too much to disturb them without good reason. From trial and error he learns that given just the right set of circumstances, a late evening after supper upon a settee before a good fire, Washington will do the unthinkable and simply _talk._

The General's favorite subject, Lafayette is surprised to learn, has not a thing to do with war or even liberty. Instead, Washington speaks at length and in considerable detail about the particulars of farming, horticulture, and the satisfaction of knowing that he has done all he can to make his estate a good one. It would be a touch boring perhaps, to listen about crop rotation when Lafayette had hardly ever cared what was planted on his estates, but it was quite intriguing indeed to watch Washington’s grave countenance become animated, to relax beside him and realize that they have both shifted until he can just feel the press of Washington’s thigh against his as they sit upon the sofa. 

As the night wears on Lafayette finds himself listening more to the tone of Washington’s voice than the words. He wishes he could put his head on Washington’s shoulder to rest, to share in the solid feeling of another person. It would be such a small thing to ask, when he has thrown his arms around Washington, taken his hand, pressed lips to his cheeks, but if ever those touches were not fleeting it was because they were born from high emotion, from feelings far stronger than the quiet calm of tonight. 

Back home, Lafayette would do that with Adrienne sometimes, gather her close and enjoy how they could lean against each other, each of them simultaneously at rest but supporting the other. It was a sort of connection he had not felt since he had left her. He misses it fiercely, but fear prevents him from seeking it, keeps his back straight and upright. 

Still Washington notices that his thoughts have drifted, and he gives Lafayette a soft and easy smile. “Have I spent too long boring you?” 

“No,” Lafayette insists. He’s at a loss to explain what he was truly thinking, that he was wishing for a moment of intimacy he is not yet sure Washington can offer him. He makes a clumsy effort to explain, “I was thinking of camaraderie.” 

Washington seems surprised by the answer. His accent makes the word sound a little strange, Lafayette thinks. “Camaraderie?” Washington repeats. 

“Yes,” Lafayette says, thinking that he might try and smooth over the strangeness of his comment. “I did not know when I came if I would be lonely, if it would be hard to be so often among strangers. I've found far more friendship here than I anticipated.” 

George smiles again, and it seems a private one, meant only for himself. Lafayette wishes to draw it out, wishes to say explicitly his desire to share in every possible comfort, but his courage fails him. Instead he fumbles for a way to bring the concept up without showing his hand. 

“Von Steuben showed me a portion of the manual he is creating, I found myself agreeing very much with his thoughts about the great love between soldiers.”

The smile on Washington’s face quite suddenly disappears at the mention of Von Steuben, odd given Washington’s apparent fondness for his dinner guest. For a moment Lafayette wonders if Laurens and Hamilton had overstated Washington’s acceptance of the peculiar Baron, but he can find no match in the General’s previous behavior to this sudden chilliness. “Don’t you find it true, sir?” 

Washington looks away, and gives his answer to the hearth. “From what I have seen, Baron Von Steuben takes a very kind view of the motivations of men. I think it’s a lofty goal for some, but one could hardly accuse the Baron of failing to embody that love at every opportunity.” 

Though it is technically an approving sort of comment, it does not quite come across as such. Lafayette worries that perhaps he’s offended Washington by implying that he might be as liberal with his love as Von Steuben seems to be. He certainly did not mean to imply that-- Lafayette would be loathe to share Washington’s attention any more than he already does.

They sit for a moment in silence, and Lafayette contemplates the sudden divide that has opened between them. He must make himself plain, or at least as plain as he dares.

“I count myself luckier than you believe,” Lafayette says quietly. When Washington looks at him, he continues, “I know that the friendship and amity I have found here is very rare, and I’m grateful for it. Before I came here, I had many grand ideas about how you would receive me. Many hopes about how I would impress you, and I do still long to do that.” Washington’s smile returns, small, as they always are, and reserved, as they have always seemed. “I hoped to be brought into your confidence on military matters, but never thought precisely of being your friend.” 

“I hope you know that you are that.” 

Lafayette smiles, pleased to hear it. “I do. And it makes me hesitate.” 

“Hesitate?” A small frown appears between Washington’s brows at the word. 

Lafayette nods, takes a deep breath. “I would not wish to ever ask too much of you.” 

For a moment, Washington regards him in silence and Lafayette is convinced that he has pressed too much, too artlessly. Then Washington sighs, and the corner of his lips lifts again. “That you thought to hesitate at all makes me think that you will not. Instead trust me to say when if you ever ask too much, and trust me not to allow my affections to be altered if you do.”

Though he nods again, agreeing, Lafayette cannot say he is quite satisfied. 

Washington seems to sense the issue is not quite resolved. “What was it?” he asks. “What was it you thought would be too much?” 

The whole answer to Washington’s question, Lafayette could never bring himself to say plainly, not now, but a part of it, the most honest and immediate part of it, finally seems safe enough in this late hour, and in this empty room. With a shy smile that begs for pardon, Lafayette shifts to lay his head upon Washington’s shoulder, and he's relieved when the General does not immediately startle. For a moment Washington’s posture stays quite stiff and straight. Beneath Lafayette’s cheek, Washington’s shoulder rises and falls with each breath, and he wonders if again Washington will again choose to slip away. 

There comes another inhale, deeper than those that came before and Lafayette braces himself for the gentle rebuke, but instead Washington exhales and there is a gradual release of tension. Washington’s shoulder is no less sturdy a place to rest, but his body relaxes more fully into the settee. It seems he will stay this time. Lafayette shut his eyes, settles more fully against Washington, and rests there for a long time, content in this small victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW some history fudging, Martha did not leave the camp until June. I didn't realize that while plotting this fic and by the time I found out I was pretty dead set on my timeline. Sorry Martha!


End file.
